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THE OUTLINE OF EVERYTHING 












“THE CHALDEANS WERE AN INDUSTRIOUS PEOPLE OF 
NOCTURNAL HABITS.” Frontispiece. See page 96. 



































THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


BY 


HECTOR B. TOOGOOD 


WITH A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE 
world’s KNOWLEDGE 

BY 

SIR J. ARTHUR WELLSWATER, R.A., H.G. 

INTRODUCTION BY HUGHE JAWPOLE 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1923 











7W 




v O v. 


Copyright, 1928 , 

By Little, Brown, and Company 

rights reserved 
Published September, 1923 


Printed in the United States of America 


OCT -4 *23 


©Cl A? 00160 


t 



INTRODUCTION 


BY THE EMINENT ENGLISH AUTHOR 
HUGHE JAWPOLE 

When first I had the proud privilege of meet¬ 
ing Hector P. Toogood, I was a child in arms. 
How I placed my baby hands on the smooth 
bald spot that is to this day to be discerned at 
the centre of the great scholar’s noble head, 
and then, losing myself in his whiskers, cried 
lustily until my mother rescued me, I have told 
in my book of fond childhood memories — the 
one which carries my career up to the age of 
three, and which is published under the title of 
“The Lacquered Egg-cup.” 

All this transpired many years ago, before the 
eminent man of letters had launched on his 
brilliant career as an Outlinist. But I shall 
never forget how my mother used to treasure, 
in the years that followed, the prediction that 


INTRODUCTION 


was uttered on that occasion by Dr. Toogood: 
“Madam, your boy will go far, and he will 
make himself heard.” 

As to the first prediction, I have come to 
America to lecture on six occasions; as to the 
second, I trust that it needs no proof. 

But, my dear American friends, I will not 
linger on childhood memories. Suffice it to say 
that a sequel to “The Lacquered Egg-cup” is 
even at this moment in the hands of my pub¬ 
lishers. I have been asked to write a preface 
to Dr. Toogood’s astonishing compendium of the 
known and the unknowable, his magnificent 
survey of the world’s art, science, history, 
philosophy, and literature, The Outline of 
Everything ; and it is of Dr. Toogood that I 
wish to speak. Ah, you Americans have read 
my books and you have heard my lectures, 
but you will never, never know the full measure 
of the love I bear your country. Your beautiful 
women! Your colossal and amazing sky¬ 
scrapers! The scale on which you carry on 
your democratic enterprises, and your idealism 
in business! 

But Dr. Toogood’s gigantic work needs no 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 

further apology from this, my humble pen. I 
defer to my colleague, Sir J. Arthur Wells water, 
who will do some further introducing of Dr. 
Toogood and will then oblige with a brief 
critical introductory survey of the world’s 
knowledge. 

Hughe Jawpole. 


Vll 









CONTENTS 


Introduction . 

• • • 

0 


PAGE 

V 

A Critical Survey 

000 



1 

I. 

The Ologies 




10 

II. 

The Tures. 




29 

III. 

The Utions 




52 

IV. 

The Ics 




61 

V. 

The Ographies . 




77 

VI. 

The Osophies 




82 

VII. 

The Isms . 




92 

VIII. 

The Onomies 

0 0 0 



95 

IX. 

How to Prepare 

an Outline at 

Home 



in Your Spare Evenings 



106 

X. 

A Bedtime Story 

of Mankind 



113 

XI. 

Outline of the Great War 



124 


Index . 

000 



141 



















ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Ring-Tailed Wombat cutting its helpless prey in 
two with its scissors-like beak . 

“ Homer’s favourite musical instrument was the 
lyre * y 

v 1 ^ • • • • • • • • « 

“Natural selection is the mysterious force within the 
cave-woman that impelled her to choose as her 
mate the cave-man who had struck her over the 
head with a limb of an oak-tree 

Superb Plate Given Absolutely Free with the Out¬ 
line of Everything, illustrating the History of Art. 
(See ^Esthetics) ....... 

“Not soon shall I forget that scene at Monkhamen 
on the Blue Nile’s left ... It was a tremendous 
moment ”... . 

At an enormous expense the author has obtained a 
Spirit Photograph actually taken in the homely 
interior of a corner saloon in a little village in 
Kent ......... 

“ Plato’s idea of love was what is technically known 
in Literature as Hot Stuff ” . 


PAGE 

18 

37 

56 

65 

68 

80 

85 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


“The Chaldeans were an industrious people of noc¬ 
turnal habits ”. 

An Outline of History for Those Who Can’t Read . 

“U-su-ally one if not both of them was burned at a 
stake, and there was a great pub-lic fest-i-val after¬ 
wards ” ........ 


PAGB 

96 

115 

121 


THE OUTLINE OF EVERYTHING 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 

A CRITICAL SURVEY 

§1 

I want to speak my Mind about some matters 
of moment to the Human Race . . . 

§2 

When I look round the world as it is to-day, 
I somehow keep on feeling that all is not well, 
or, to put it more simply for my less quick-witted 
readers, that all is not as it should be. To err 

1 



THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


(as Arthur Brisbane and Doctor Frank Crane 
have often said) is human. But that is no 
reason for declining to combat error whereso¬ 
ever we may find it. 

These profound truths were haunting my 
Mind persistently when the publishers ap¬ 
proached me, as publishers will, with a proposal 
that I should evolve an 44 Outline of Everything’’ 
in my spare time. I hesitated. . . . But I 

have decided now to undertake this gigantic, 
cyclopean, gargantuan and mammoth task. 

Believe me, I did not reach this decision with¬ 
out thought. That would hardly have been 
fitting in one of my standing. I reached it only 
after prolonged struggles and the deepest heart¬ 
searching. (“Am I really worthy?” I asked 
myself repeatedly and repeatedly in the silent 
night-watches.) But in the end I did reach it. 
And I take my stand upon it. But — there 
is one thing I want to have quite clear in the 
minds of all my readers, from cottage to palace, 
rich and low, high and poor. And that is this: 

2 






A CRITICAL 
SURVEY 



That none of us, publisher or editor or printer 
or map-maker or advertising manager or even 
the illustrator, none of us, I repeat, has any 
motive of Gain or Profit in undertaking this 
scheme of universal enlightenment, this Great 
Crusade against ignorance. None at all. 

Why, then, do we do it ? 

You may well ask. For our answer, read 

§s. 

§3 

We do it because we love the Human Race . 

§4 

That is all. 

I have put it as simply as I can, because “Sim¬ 
plicity First” is our motto in this work. Let 
me explain our guiding principles. 

Looking round the world (as one does), I have 
long been struck by an astounding error in 
Human Mentality. In this country of ours to¬ 
day, incredible as it may seem, there are literally 
hundreds of thousands of persons who quite 

3 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


honestly believe that Knowledge in the broader 
sense is something which can only be laboriously 
acquired, dragged out of many books, hammered 
out of long experience and purchased in no fewer 
than six hundred and twenty-eight (628) fort¬ 
nightly parts in England, or, in America, forty- 
nine (49) volumes. It is pitiful! These benighted 
people actually think that Learning is as slow 
to acquire as furniture on an instalment system !! 
What a tragedy is here ! What useless, bootless, 
fruitless toil they must give themselves! 

And why ? 

Because no one until the present moment has 
troubled to systematize the vast field of Human 
Knowledge. Art and Science and Etiquette and 
Literature and History and Savage Tribes and 
Childrens’ Innocent Questions — they have all 
seven been treated as separate items in the 
Great Audit of Human Achievement. With 
what result ? I ask myself . . . 


4 






A CRITICAL 
SURVEY 


§5 

The “ Outline of Everything,” under my su¬ 
pervision and Professor Hector B. Toogood’s 
editorial direction, and with the assistance of 
no fewer than eight hundred and forty-four 
Experts (not including the illustrators, appren¬ 
tices under 14 years, and the advertising staff), 
will provide you with the sum total of Human 
Knowledge in One volume. 

There . . . 

§ 6 

How can this be done ? 

That was a question which I and the 844 other 
Experts had to face. But we faced it. We 
loved the Human Race. We were resolved 
that Mankind should no longer labour and strug¬ 
gle in darkness of the spirit. And so for months 
and months we faced it, separately, in relays, all 
together, 845 of us (still not including the illus¬ 
trators, apprentices under 14 years, and the 
advertising staff). We considered the problem 
from every angle, every slant, every viewpoint 

5 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


even. We read books of all kinds, quartos, 
folios, duodecimos. We discussed and considered 
and pondered, all of us, month after month. 

And while we, the 845 toiled, the others were 
not idle. Already the illustrators were hard at 
work, ransacking all the museums of Europe, 
America and Sumatra to provide the Lavish 
Illustrations which they guessed (and rightly) 
we should require; many of the apprentices 
passed the age limit of 14 and automatically 
became experts; and the advertising staff had 
much to do in a quiet way of its own. 

But at last our labours were rewarded. 

Not in any material sense. But by Victory. 
For at last (and there has been no more historic 
date since the invention of gunpowder) we saw 
the light. For the first time in the recorded 
history of Man,* it was decided to abandon the 
illogical and out-of-date method of Alphabetical 
Classification of Learning, which had been used 

* “ Except in the case of Chu-po-Ling, supreme encyclopaedist to the 
Msfu Dynasty, c. 5348 b.c.” (J. K. L., Chinese Expert). “So you say” 

(J. A. W., Editor). 


6 






A CRITICAL 
SURVEY 


in dictionaries, encyclopaedias and telephone- 
books since the very darkest of ages. A crude 
and misleading system, of which the world is 
well rid! Yes, for the first time in the recorded 
history of Man,* it was decided to adopt, in 
this all-embracing compendium of knowledge, 
a system of Classification by Terminations. For 
by so doing, we perceived, the whole schema and 
ground-plan of the learning and art of all the 
ages would be instantaneously simplified and 
clarified, expenses of publication would be re¬ 
duced by at least 99 per cent., and the Human 
Race would be brought quite visibly nearer the 
Millenium. 



§7 

Our deliberations, then (I say it in all modesty) 
were not in vain. The science of Terminology 
has been invented. A special staff of 75 Super- 
Experts, with myself as their co-ordinating chief, 

* “Except in the case of Chu-po-Ling, supreme encyclopaedist to the 
Msfu Dynasty, c. 5348 b.c.” (J. K. L., Chinese Expert). “I will not 
be led into futile arguments” (J. A. W., Editor). 

7 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



was appointed to draw up a plan of campaign for 
this new Renaissance of Learning. 

And after a very few weeks of further con¬ 
sideration, it was unanimously decided that an 
Outline of Everything could be ranged under 
these terminations: 

The Utions. 

The Osophies. 

The Ologies. 

The Ographies. 

The Isms. 

The Ics. 

And so on. 

§8 

And here, I feel, I must stand aside, and 
leave the exposition of the new learning to the 
Experts who have so kindly devoted their lives 
to this disinterested end. I have said my say 
and filled my space, as the publishers have asked, 
and now I shall confine myself to the unobtrusive 
task of consultant supervision. . . . You 

8 






A CRITICAL 
SURVEY 


are embarking upon the deep and perilous seas 
of Knowledge. The voyage may be long and 
the hardships severe. But take courage! For 
you may go forward with a firm step, assured 
that my thoughts are with you, as constantly, as 
invariably, as my name is writ upon the title- 
pages. . . . 

§9 

We all have our uses. . . . 

(Sgd.) J. ARTHUR WELLSWATER 



9 







THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


I 

THE OLOGIES 

(Specially written by the Editor Himself) 

Let who will rhapsodize on the so-called melody 
of the nightingale (it is but a normal function of 
theornitho-laryngealorgans),on the faded splen¬ 
dours of an Athenian urn (which are no more 
than a slow process of calcine decomposition), 
or let who will sing with needless repetition their 
impassioned strains of the isles of Greece, the 
isles of Greece (which are merely sporadic oxidic- 
limestone and granite-up-cropping formations 
on the iEgean subaqueous structure) . . . 

An Outline of Human Progress . 

For myself, I would sing you the stern and 
austere glories of Science; of the triumphant 

10 








Progress of Man from out the welter and ooze of 
the ages, out from the sea and slime and muck 
of the remote and inconceivable Utions; of his 
Conquest of earth and sky and water, of the 
glorious procession of the upstanding, on-strid¬ 
ing handicrafts, flint and bronze and ferro-con- 
crete; of the all-encompassing, ruthlessly ad¬ 
vancing, never-resting, onward-treading chariot- 
wheels of the beneficent Isms, the fragile and 
beauteous Osophies, the tense and rock-ribbed 
Ologies . . . 

The Ologies! Symbol of mind’s conquest of 
matter! Pythagorean emblem of permissible 
and not unscientific awe! Domain of the mi¬ 
croscope and the cells, tissue and padded! 
Proud realm of tireless research and infinite 
pains, on the strict scientist’s give-and-take basis! 
Yea ! beneficent are the Isms, and beauteous the 
Osophies, and bland in their modest abbrevia¬ 
tion the Ics — and I, who, in Oxford University 
and Long Island, have read both the screed of 
Science and the open book of Nature, shall be 

11 









THE 


OUTLINE 


OF 


EVERYTHING 


the last to detract from their legitimate splen¬ 
dours, and the last to throw the first stone at 
their occasional but pardonable incompleteness 
of their epistemological exegesis. But still I 
reiterate — for me, the Ologies ! 

With the fluke-worm (biology), the earth¬ 
quake {geology), and the cerebral lesion (psych- 
ology), I am happy and at home. Speak to me 
in hushed whispers of histology, with a break in 
the voice of path ology, and loudly, happily, tri¬ 
umphantly, with a peroration in your tone and 
a clash of silent symbols in your ears, of the 
splendours of etymology and its offspring termin- 
ology, on whose far-flung tenets rest the very 
foundations of the “Outline of Everything”. . . 

But space presses, does it not? I must be 
brief. Not a word too much, not a line too 
pregnant with cosmic truth, must the Outline 
contain. 

I must be brief . . . 

I am pressed for space . . . 

But I could not help pausing with a gesture 

12 








THE 

OLOGIES 


for just an instant, here on the brink of the ago¬ 
nized Ologies . . . 

Biology . 

Entangled as it is with the immemorial ooze 
of the Utions , biology is difficult to comprehend 
as the undoubtedly individual entity that it is 
in the hierarchy of Science. To put the matter 
more succinctly, biology is biology and must 
not be confused with evolution. That is to 
say, that, while biology is the handmaid of evo¬ 
lution there is nothing scandalous in the 
relationship. 

The province of biology is the classification, 
labelling and naming of all animals. So we see 
at the outset that the biologist’s is no mean pre¬ 
rogative. Some biologists, we are bound to ad¬ 
mit, have taken a mean advantage of this proud 
privilege, and have given unnecessarily harsh 
names to animals which they did not happen to 
like. It would be unfair, however, to advance 



13 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


these isolated cases against the dignity and in¬ 
tegrity of the science. 


A Charming Pet . 

The biologist must first capture his animal. 
Then, having cut it open to see the works, and 
placed a label upon it, his primary concern is to 
determine its ancestors and its first cousins. 
And the first question which he must answer is: 
Does this animal belong to the land or the sea ? 
Now, to the layman, the obvious way to deter¬ 
mine this would seem to be by deciding whether 
it swims or not. But the layman, as usual, errs. 
Consider how inspiring an instance of biological 
evolution and decadence is furnished by the ring¬ 
tailed wombat of Palisade, New Jersey. This 
creature, much sought as a domestic pet by the 
chief hostesses of upper Fifth Avenue, if placed 
in the water will promptly swish its tail furiously 
and vainly attempt to tread water. If then it is 
not promptly removed, it will fold its attractive 
tail, turn up its toes, and perish in great agony 

14 









with plaintive whimpering cries. But — be¬ 
tween the elongated toe-nails of the ring-tailed 
wombat as we know it to-day the biologist has 
detected the rudimentary scales of webbed feet!! 
There are those who say that the ring-tailed 
wombat merely keeps its pedal extremities care¬ 
lessly, but to this it can be replied that the plu¬ 
mage and horns of the ring-tailed wombat are 
none otherwise than immaculate, and its nose 
is always neatly wiped — an unanswerable ar¬ 
gument. 

And this is not all. If now we make a careful 
examination of the rings on its striated tail, we 
shall observe that each separate ring has an in¬ 
dented border, pale pink in hue, and within the 
ring itself there is a small dot, the whole being 
somewhat similar in pattern to a ready-made 
lounge suit ordered by parcel post. The pale 
pink borders and the dots within the rings are 
nothing but rudimentary gills !!! 

But our chain of evidence is not yet com¬ 
plete. The gills in the striated tail of the ring- 

15 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


tailed wombat would serve it for steering when 
submerged, but where do we have the propelling 
force? For the answer, we invite you to ob¬ 
serve the texture and conformation of the head 
of the ring-tailed wombat on the next occasion 
when you observe one. Note, please, the neck : 
it is shaped like the bottom of an egg-cup at its 
base, then tapers off gracefully, swells again at 
the base of the horns and the drooping ears, wi¬ 
dens again to a bulbous shape, and at the hill 
sharpens out to the outline of a pair of shears 
lying flat!!!! 

Ingenuity of the Wombat. 

Now, mark this carefully, for to the trained 
eye everything has a meaning. From the fos¬ 
sils of ring-tailed wombats extracted from gla¬ 
cial strata, we know that this creature existed 
in those remote days when the earth from the 
North Pole almost to the Equator was covered 
with a frigid mantle of glaciers. These were 
trying times for wombats. But with the scis- 

16 








THE 

OLOGIES 


sors-like bill, the dauntless creature learned to 
dig its way through the hurrying, slippery gla¬ 
ciers, to its natural habitat in the ocean, and 
could often be seen diving gracefully, spreading 
its horns, into the frigid water. Then, by the 
weight of its top-heavy head, the body turned 
completely round, executing a neat somersault, 
the gills in the tail churning the water like the 
paddle of a side-wheel steam-boat, into a frothy 
foam which concealed its progress from sharks, 
mammoths and other enemies of its toothsome 
species. But the tail , as we have already pointed 
out, acted merely as a propeller, by means of 
which this marine animal steered its course. 
The actual means of locomotion were the bony 
formations that we see to-day surviving as the 
horns of the ring-tailed wombat, which to this 
very day are double-jointed ! 11! I 

A Relentless Hunter . 

Here, then, we see the most completely equip¬ 
ped creature of the sea that is known to Science 

17 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


— with oars, webbed feet, propeller and gills, 
its head and vicious beak tucked gently under its 
shoulders, turning over and over and over again 
with the motion of a revolving sphere, and churn¬ 
ing the water fiercely while it avoids its pursuers 
or seeks its prey. Once the prey (sea-mules and 
oysters were its staple diet) is sighted, the ring¬ 
tailed wombat first stuns it by lifting its tail 
and splashing the frightened creature with icy 
water, then projects the scissors-like formation 
of its beak, cutting the helpless victim into two 
portions, one of which is devoured at once, the 
other being carried off and put in cold storage in 
a convenient glacier. 

But with the passing of the ages the sea-mules 
developed a hide sufficiently tough to blunt 
the edges of the shears of the wombat, and this 
ferocious beast of prey was forced to take to the 
dry land for sustenance. And that is why the 
few surviving members of this tragic species at 
this late day have actually forgotten how to swim ! 
Blunted are their horns, closed and sealed are 

18 









THE RING-TAILED WOMBAT CUTTING ITS HELPLESS PREY 
IN TWO WITH ITS SCISSORS-LIKE BEAK. Page 18. 












their gills, and the only surviving glories of what 
was once a proud monarch of the deep, are the 
smooth, unruffled plumage and the lustrous sur¬ 
face of the striated tail. . . .We warned 

you that biology was a melancholy subject . . . 

Quite So. 

Ah, biology! When we know the story of 
the ring-tailed wombat, we know all. Man, 
too, had a tail in his day, but where is it now ? 
Man, who once lived in the tree-tops and shied 
cocoanuts on the pates of his foes, now drags 
out a miserable existence below, in a world of 
w T age-earning, and flat-dwelling, and income- 
tax forms . . . 

Yes, we, too, are going the way . . . 

Of the ring-tailed . . . 

Wombat . . . 

Down . . . 

Down . . . 

The aeons . . . 


19 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


Psychology . 

All psych ology is divided into two classes, the 
new and the old. Where the old psychology 
was merely a mildly amusing study of the innate 
foolishness of mankind, the research experts of 
the Rockefeller Foundation have discovered, 
classified and put into practical operation at 
least 40,432 new kinds. (See the Isms.) 

Theology . 

Theology is a science to be approached rever¬ 
ently, for two reasons — the first being that it 
is the study of God, the second being that in 
modern times it is a specialty of our favourite 
demigods. 

Applied theology was discovered by Mr. H. 
G. Wells. (See “The Soul of a Bishop” and 
“The Secret Places of the Heart.”) 

Egyptology. 

We shall treat presently, in the department of 
^Esthetics, of the beauty, the unfaded splendour, 

20 







THE 


OLOGIES 



and the general magniloquence of art in Egypt 
under the reign of the good king Monkhahotep. 
But after all, what can a mere director of the Ics 
know of the far-flung, widespread and exalted 
science of Egyptology? Practically nothing. 
True, the specimens of Egyptian art he has given 
are admitted to be at least three thousand years 
old. But, as directing genius of the Ologies, we 
are not to be outdone. We have unearthed 
from the mysterious and dusty sands of Egypt 
the shirt of the Pharaoh Egg-ard-boild, proven 
indisputably by the laundry marks and the lus¬ 
trous je ne sais quoi of its awe-inspiringly beau¬ 
tiful, though somewhat extreme pattern, to be 
at least ten thousand years old !!! 

Reverence for Antiquity Desirable . 

Is your breath bated? Do your eyes grow 
large, and your mouth wide, with astonishment ? 
Does your face pale ? No, we thought 

not. Alas, this is an age that is accustomed to 
great sensations, an age that is jaded with sen- 

21 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


sation, an age that for all its vaunted savoir faire 
is lacking in sine qua non . 

Canine Intelligence Demonstrated . 

Modesty compels me, however, to state at 
this juncture that it was through a stroke of 
transcendental luck as much as from the fruit 
of a lifelong scholarship combined with a natural 
aptitude for the Ologies that I made the great 
discovery. I chose to take my annual vacation 
in Egypt last year on the five-hundred-dollars- 
all-inclusive tour that I cannot recommend too 
warmly to all serious students of Egyptology. 
I took with me my pet hound Tobias. One 
afternoon I was strolling with Tobias down one 
of the most ancient of Egypt’s thoroughfares 
in search of refreshment that is theoretically 
unobtainable in New York* when Tobias began 
to act queerly. Suddenly he snarled and dashed 
madly across the street, straight over a wooden 
fence and into the modest garden of a fellaheen’s 

* But I am a scientist, and not a theorist. H. B. T. 

22 








THE 

OLOGIES 


home, where the washing was hanging out to 
dry in the quaint Egyptian custom. I followed, 
somewhat alarmed. Tobias continued to make 
queer noises, and then suddenly began digging 
furiously with his paws. Presently he unearthed 
a bone, and ran off with it, growling contentedly. 
But was I satisfied? Briefly, no. I was con¬ 
vinced that there was more^n^this than met the 
eye. I enlarged the hole with my stick, digging 
feverishly . . . 

And that was how I made the great Egypto¬ 
logical find of the age, the Shirt of the Pharaoh 
Egg-ard-boild, containing, in addition to the 
laundry mark of which I have spoken and its 
stupendously gorgeous and efflorescent designs, 
an inscription that gives to the world for the 
first time — 

The True Story of the Sphinx! 

I know there are some who say that in the 
heat of my excitement I knocked a shirt from 
the fellaheen’s clothes-line, and that this is the 

23 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


shirt I discovered. It is an aspersion that de¬ 
serves to be answered with silent contempt, 
but in answer I point to the inscription on the 
neckband — in the clear black hieroglyphs of 
the ancient royal launderer which, deciphered, 
read: E. A. B. (the abbreviation of the royal 
name), and, underneath, the dates : b.c. 10,000, 
b.c. 9,997 — one date for each of the two oc¬ 
casions on which the royal shirt was washed. 
There are no further dates, but every man who 
professes to understand the merest elements of 
Egyptology knows that the great monarch Egg- 
ard-boild, in the lavish munificence and royal 
extravagance that in the end brought his mighty 
dynasty to grief, scorned to wear a shirt that 
had been laundered more than twice. 

An Insoluble Mystery Solved. 

But I will not dwell on an unnecessary defence 
of my scholarship. Having unravelled, for the 
enlightenment of all succeeding ages, the eternal 
mystery of the sphinx, I hasten to give a repro- 

24 








duction of the shirt of King-ard-boild (only 
slightly reconstructed),'and the verses inscribed 
thereon by the royal poet, which I have trans¬ 
lated for the benefit of those of my readers who 
are not familiar with the nuances of the ancient 
Egyptian tongue. To modern taste, the verses 
may seem somewhat strong, but I ask my readers 
to take them as they find them, in the spirit of 
ancient Egypt. Also, I must point out that 
modern scholarship has ascertained that the 
royal poet was having trouble with the censors. 


THE TRUE STORY OF THE SPHINX 


Nought but desert sand surrounds in bar¬ 
ren wastes , and windy mounds , the Sphinx. 
She never feels the wind that blows , she never 
comes and never goes. She thinks. But 
once in every thousand years (Fve watched 
you see) I have my fears. I have my fears , 
I have my fears — she winks . 


25 











THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


The story goes (Til tell you straight) Noh- 
no the Prince conceived a hate for girls. The 
Prince from sight of women fled , the very 
thought would set his head in whirls. Yet 
for his chaste ascetic ways the people would 
not give him praise. They said: “We’ve 
come on evil days” — the churls! 


Wherever troops of women flocked the 
Prince was obviously shocked , at these. The 
morals of the land were sad. This every his¬ 
tory , good and bad , agrees. But when the 
ladies made advances at public fetes and royal 
dances , and sought to win him with their 
glances , he’d freeze. 


The Prince , to all the nation’s glee , was 
captured once , presumably , by foes. His 
captors , they were thieving Huns. Their 
women folk were wicked ones , were those. 
They seemed to think his attitude towards 
women was not only rude but — {they, you see , 
were very crude) a pose. 


26 











THE 

OLOGIES 





At any rate, they told him flat, if he would 
try escaping, that he'd die. 2 / A# 

would behave himself, surrendering all his 
earthly pelf, they'd try to make things easy as 
they could if Noh-no acted as he should — in 
other words, if but he would, comply. 


The atmosphere grew warm and warmer, 
disturbing Noli, the first reformer, intensely. 
Quoth he: “Well, here I can't uplift. It 
would be bad to use my gift, densely." You 
see, a maiden fair had danced before the rob¬ 
bers. Noh had glanced and — well, he liked 
her, as it chanced immensely. 


“Well, since from sin I cannot stop her, I 
think I too will be improper," said he. He 
whispered in her ear, and then — she called to 
all the robber men, did she. She spoke, and 
great her anger grew: “So this is how all 
men are true! The test is over. Go, for you 
— are free l" 


27 












THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


The maiden who had made the test (a prin¬ 
cess) for the deed was blessed , by all . The 
Prince , he shortly left the land , for he , as oae 
may understand , felt small . ylraZ ZesZ the 
story be forgot , they built her statue on the 
spot , the Sphinx , whose kindly face should not 
appal . 


The statue stands in sand and dust , ZwZ 
every thousand years it must rehearse — a 
joke, for men who 've seen the Sphinx , they 
say she winks , they say she winks , Zo narse 
her joke , which is (she is not sad , really 

never glum nor glad) “All men who think all 
others bad , are worse.” 


28 










II 

THE TURES 

Pre-eminent among the Tures, by reason of its 
genteel association, stands Literature. 

Literature may be considered under two heads, 
viz ., (1) Pure Literature, and (2) Applied Litera¬ 
ture. Conforming to our usual differentiation 
of the systematization of knowledge, we shall 
treat (1) first and (2) second. Pure Literature 
has been entrusted to the able and expensive 
pen of ex-Captain Debenham Phipps, O. B. E., 
who won a sudden aureole of glory as the, or 
rather The, soldier-poet of the late War, and 
has since been known in the two hemispheres 
gladdened by his thrush-like song as the Man 
Who Makes Poetry Pay. The article on Ap¬ 
plied Literature, however, was commissioned 
for the Outline from a prominent pragmatical 

29 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



critic whose modesty is, here at least, girdled 
with anonymity. 


(1) PURE LITERATURE 

(Specially written by ex-Captain Deben- 
ham Phipps, O. B. E., author of Bloody 
Mud and Other Poems, 1915; Thud, 
Thud! and Other Poems, 1916; The 
Nightingale Behind the Lines, 1917; 
Safe and Sound, and Other Poems, 1918, 
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.) 

I stand sometimes upon a rising weald that 
swells gently up towards a blue English sky not 
far from my remote Sussex homestead. My feet 
are planted on its sweet nurturing turf, close- 
cropped by a thousand generations of our kindly 
English ewes, and, although I do my best to 
avoid causing unnecessary pain in a world that 
has suffered long and suffered much, they some¬ 
times crush unwittingly the primroses and the 
violets that push softly up to smile at spring 
and the flickering larks and all that is good and 

30 






THE 

TURES 


gracious on the weald. I stand there gazing 
out over the soft checkerboard of field and 
copse, copse and field, that lies between me and 
the sea, and there (the shepherds tell of it in 
the cosy inns o’nights) I may be seen standing 
and standing, adream, adream ... 

How it Comes to Him . 

For in that pale mingled scent of our English 
primroses and violets that creeps up from where 
I crush their fragrance, there is something of a 
strange and beautiful intoxication. Sometimes, 
i’ faith, it brings up from my heart a Poem, 
sometimes a whole Play comes welling up within 
me in long, cool gushes of blank verse, and yes¬ 
terday — quite soon after I had received Sir 
Arthur’s request for a sweeping survey of Pure 
Literature — there came to me a Vision that 
I cannot soon forget. May I share it with you 
to-day ? I should like to. 

You must know, readers mine, that over the 
top, over the summit, of this weald of ours, 

31 








THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


there runs a road, an old road, a road that ambles 
and curves and winds and wanders as deliciously 
as only an English road upon an English weald 
will. And it was while my eyes rested upon 
this comforting sight, following it, caressing it, 
loving it, that my vision came upon me. For 
suddenly there, in the spring sunlight that 
seemed like a very essence of the yellow marigolds 
down yonder by Chumberleigh Pools, I saw, com¬ 
ing up and over the crest of the slope, a great pro¬ 
cession. A great procession — the words are 
simple and bare, but they stand for something 
very, very wonderful. 


Vision enjoyed by ex-Captain Phipps . 

For that procession was the passing-by of all 
the great men, aye! and the great women, too, 
of the world’s great Literature. In twos and 
threes and singly, and in little groups and larger 
coteries, they came trooping along that grassy 
primrose path: Homer and Wordsworth and 
Racine; Cervantes too with faithful Sancho 

32 







THE 


TURES 



Panza by his side; Shakespeare like a walking 
star and wise old Demosthenes; Fielding and 
Whittier and Mr. Edmund Gosse; old Sam 
Johnson rolled by with busy Boswell hard at 
hand, and Omar Khayyam walked between, 
with gyves upon his wrists; Heloise was there, 
and Mr. George Moore and Mrs. Aphra Behn; 
Virgil and Horace and sweet-tongued Diderot 
and M. Margueritte were close behind, and 
among a great throng of high immortals, I could 
see Euripides and Henry Arthur Jones, Pepys 
and Repington and a gentleman in a fluster, 
Nietzsche and Dr. Crane and merry Socrates, 
Gibbon and Hendrik van Loon, Mr. Bennett and 
Mr. Wells and the inventor of the Dictaphone, 
and many and many a one who seemed to turn a 
half-reproachful, half-forgiving eye upon me as 
I stood there staring: for in their immortality 
they must have known that I had not read their 
books. . . . And then I saw with delight 

that many of my own dear friends were there 
among them (but their names I dare not men* 

33 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


tion now), and I envied them their converse 
with the great undying ones. And suddenly 
there where I stood upon the scented turf, I 
hailed them with a handwave and a cry: “Hi! 
May I come too ?” 

But — but there was no answer. A silence. 
Blank. Utter. Only the distant tinkling of a 
sheep-bell from a coppice beyond the windmill 
and the oast-houses. Silence. I was alone. 
All that glorious company was gone, all of them, 
ghosts swallowed up in the sunlight and the 
silence. 

But I had seen . 

And I have told you how. All the glory of 
Literature was there that afternoon, on that 
English hillside, outlined for me to see against 
a blue, blue sky. And now you have shared it 
with me, that unforgettable vision. 

I sometimes stand upon a rising weald . . . . 

May be there is a Poem in that too . . . 


D. P. 


34 







THE 

TURES 


Brilliant and stimulating as ex-Capt. Phipps’ 
entrancing rhapsody is, we yet feel that our 
readers might be none the worse of some more 
precise information as to the leading figures of 
Literature. We have therefore prevailed upon 
our biographical experts to furnish a summary 
of literary biography from ancient to modern 
times. 

Homer . 

The poet Homer is the starting-point of all 
literary history. This makes him an extremely 
important figure in the development of Litera¬ 
ture, as it is unlikely that Literature would ever 
have come to anything if it had not had him as 
a nucleus to start on. Yet it is impressive to 
think that no first editions of Homer’s poems 
are now extant, and that he himself wrote in the 
days before there were any publishers. 

The absence of publishing firms in these far- 
off days is a great pity. It would be interesting 
to know what the readers’ reports said of his 

3 5 


i 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


manuscripts, which must have been exceedingly 
bulky, and, on account of his blindness, far 
from legible. And it is a pity that the lack of 
an efficient publicity department also means 
that we have practically no personal knowledge 
of this otherwise famous poet. Incredible as 
it may seem to an enlightened age, there is not 
one photograph of Homer in golfing knickers 
taking the nineteenth hole of the Artexerxian 
Course, or beaming on his third bride on the 
temple steps: not one jot of information as 
to his favourite breakfast food or what colours 
he fancied in neckwear: not one tittle of a hint 
of the huge price paid for the dramatic, movie 
and radio rights of his serial epic, “The Odyssey ” 
(re-named in Hollywood “The Lure o’ the 
Wanderlust”): and not the ghost of a humorous 
paragraph in the book-columns recounting the 
new and amusing episode of the housekeeper 
to whom he proposed to present a book as a 
birthday gift, and who replied disapprovingly, 
“A book? Oh, I gotta book, thank you.” 

36 







“HOMER’S FAVOURITE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT WAS THE 

LYRE.” Page 37. 






































































































































































THE 

TURES 


Ah, well! There may have been compensa¬ 
tions in those simpler, sweeter days of Arcadian 
Greece. Homer, it is believed, never had to 
butt his head against the stern, stone-walled 
truth that authors propose and publishers re¬ 
pose. And he never found himself forced to go 
to America to lecture in order to pay the Eng¬ 
lish income tax on his American royalties. 

Homer, in spite of his great age, was easily the 
champion long-distance poet of all time. “The 
Odyssey” is 1,432 lines longer than the longest 
poem by Alfred Noyes, and has other points of 
superiority. 

It is known from many contemporary sculp¬ 
tures that Homer’s favourite musical instrument 
was the lyre. But this was even then an old- 
fashioned instrument, a fact which accounts for 
one of the most serious defects in his poetry — 
the absence of jazz. This is admitted by even 
his most wholehearted admirers, who include 
many highly educated persons. A further de¬ 
fect, while we are on this subject, was his 

37 









THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


lack of knowledge of the uses of the dot and as¬ 
terisk. 


Virgil. 

Virgil was the author of Latin text-books for 
high-schools and colleges. Virgil was the great¬ 
est authority on the use of the pluperfect sub¬ 
junctive, and the complex subject of Latin 
grammar in general, that ever lived. Indeed, 
what weary nights and days he spent, what 
Herculean energies he expended in evolving 
these long poems so accurately that they would 
pass the eagle eyes of generation after genera¬ 
tion of examiners, no man knoweth. 

The master mind of Virgil, which had so easily 
assimilated the most intricate involutions of 
syntax, enabled him also to absorb the most 
abstruse mythological and classical allusions. 
He enjoyed a great reputation for this, and the 
Romans of his day, most of whom spoke Latin 
fluently and with correct quantities, took great 
pleasure in reading his work — almost as much, 

38 







THE 

TURES 


it is said, as the modern scholar does in parsing 
it. 

But then, after all, poetry was never quite 
a respectable profession, and it is only by dint of 
making hard work of the reading of Virgil that 
scholarship has succeeded in de-vulgarizing him. 

Dante. 

Dante wrote the Divine Comedy, but it is 
no joke to read it. 

But Dante was not nearly so learned a man 
as many people give him credit for. Only re¬ 
cently, for instance, the editor of this Outline him¬ 
self was looking through his edition of Dante’s 
works, and marvelling at the erudition of a medi¬ 
eval Italian, as Dante was. But he suddenly dis¬ 
covered that all the footnotes, glossary, and 
fine-print commentary were not written by 
Dante at all, but by one Anastasius Sweezy, 
Ph.D.! This was an eye-opener. And off¬ 
hand, it sounds like a case of plagiarism; but 
in justice to the memory of the deceased poet, 

39 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


we must point out that he died many generations 
before Dr. Sweezy was born. 

In addition to being a talented poet and an 
intrepid traveller in this and other worlds, 
Dante was a great discoverer. For he discov¬ 
ered that romance and marriage do not always 
go together. He was married himself to a 
scolding wife, but wrote poems at a girl named 
Beatrice, whom he had loved in youth. So at 
least it is said. But there are no fewer than 
463 portraits and paintings of Beatrice, and 
none of them look at all alike, so it is doubtful 
whether she really existed. But artists are un¬ 
reliable creatures anyway. 

Moliere . 

This playwright’s real name was Jean-Jaques 
Poquelin. So if he had not by a happy inspira¬ 
tion changed his name, we should not to-day 
have the plays of Moliere at all. On such 
small things do the destinies of men and letters 
depend! 



40 






THE 

TURES 



His plays are deservedly famous, and when in 
Paris one should always go to see at least one, 
after seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Folies 
Bergeres. They are most educational. 


Shakespeare . 

Shakespeare was a man who hated school 
teachers, and for three hundred years they have 
been getting their revenge on him. 

Shakespeare’s works, like the Bible and the 
“Outline of Everything,” are very useful to 
prove things with. One can prove anything 
by Shakespeare. The Germans, in fact, have 
proved by his plays that he was a German; 
and still other scholars have proved that he was 
not Shakespeare at all, but a wise man called 
Bacon. This last is called the Baconian theory, 
and springs from the horrible thought that, being 
but a crude country bumpkin, he could not 
possibly have written a satisfactory treatise 
with footnotes, glossary, interlinear comments, 

41 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



variorums and deckle edges on even one of his 
reputed plays. 

Yet, in spite of this colossal fame, only two 
persons in three hundred years have been kind 
to the memory of Shakespeare. One was the 
first man who named a tavern after him. And 
the other was a reformed school teacher named 
Clemence Dane who wrote a play about him, and 
gave him a few human weaknesses. 


( 2 ) APPLIED LITERATURE 

(Specially Contributed to the 44 Outline of 
Everything” by Z. Z. Z., author of 44 Does It 
Pay?” 44 Make It Pay,” 44 How It Pays,” 
44 The Pay’s the Thing, and Other Dramatic 
Essays,” etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.) 

Many readers may have thought that with 
ex-Capt. Phipps’ musical prelude and the able 
historical survey which follows, the Editor of 
the Outline might have been satisfied. But no. 
He spares no expense for the benefit of his eager 

42 







THE 

TURES 


j 



public, and he has asked me to tell them a few 
of the facts about literature which may not have 
been apparent in even a close study of these 
brilliant articles. I have agreed. And I should 
like here to address myself particularly to those 
of my readers who cherish Literary Ambitions, 
and hope to succeed in the stern race of our 
Twentieth Century culture. 

First then, as to making a start. The French 
have a wise old saw that “ce n'est que le premier 
par qui coute ,” or, to translate, it is only the 
first paragraph that counts. (And this reminds 
me that you will find a dictionary of quotations 
an invaluable friend in your early days on Par¬ 
nassus.) 

Well, my opinion is that the best way of learn¬ 
ing all about Literature is to get to know literary 
people. This is easily done. They abound in 
even the remotest suburbs, and, being naturally 
gregarious (as ex-Capt. Phipps has pointed out), 
they herd together in clubs, societies, coteries, 
groups and movements with a great variety of 


43 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


titles. At first they may seem a trifle forbidding, 
but do not be put off by this. Stick to it. Mix 
with them. Get together. Talk with them. 
And then, almost without your noticing it 
you, will soon get yourself known among your 
friends, and even your family, as a Literary 
Person. 

This you will find very useful, as before long 
you will be obliged to write a book of your own 
to keep it up. Many of our greatest authors 
have begun in this humble way. Take en¬ 
couragement from the case of Lord Riddlebrook, 
for example. For many a long year this King 
of the Bookstalls was only an ordinary, plain, 
work-a-day, strap-hanging politician, such as you 
might see anywhere, in a tea-shop or an omnibus. 
But under that quiet, unassuming exterior, 
there lay hidden the very loftiest ambitions. 
Mr. Riddlebrook (as he then was) aspired mag¬ 
nificently. He dreamed of being Something 
More. And one evening, wearied by the hum¬ 
drum round of political life (“the daily round, 

44 







THE 

TURES 



the common task,” as he has since so well called 
it — see your Dictionary of Quotations), he saw 
his opportunity — and took it. 

Quite quickly he determined that he must 
get to know Literary People. It would give 
him his chance. And accordingly he went out, 
down to Fleet Street, and bought a newspaper 
for himself — not of course one copy only, as 
you or I might do, but the whole lot, machinery 
and editors and news and opinions and printers 
and everything. And in this way he soon got 
to know quite a large number of real practical 
literary men, many of them indeed quite well 
read. He persevered. He mixed with them. 
In fact he got quite mixed up with them, and 
in a very short time he actually wrote a book all 
of his own! It was called “ Making Good,” 
and, as he would often say to his less gifted 
friends (who were many) this was a very good 
title because that was just what the book was 
all about. Of course they always said after 
that, that what Mr. Riddlebrook (as he then was) 

45 







OF 


OUTLINE 


THE 


EVERYTHING 


did not know about titles, simply wasn’t worth 
knowing . . . 

Literature is naturally divided into Prose and 
Poetry. Prose is made in a solid and rectangu¬ 
lar shape, while Poetry is born deeply indented 
all down the right-hand side. This, as the 
chief of our Biology department points out to 
me, is a very providential arrangement, as Mother 
Nature has thus made it possible for the two 
to be distinguished at a distance, even by the 
most short-sighted. Thus do the marvels of 
creation extend even into Literature. 

Now if you elect to write Prose, your chief 
care, apart from grammar and spelling, will be 
to avoid any unnecessary trouble with the Cen¬ 
sorship. Poetic work, however, is never banned, 
because it has a licence. But prose writers are 
continually getting into trouble, and even into 
prison, through indiscretions which could easily 
be avoided with a little foresight. The trouble 
usually begins with what are technically known 
as Scenes of Passion (the “a” is pronounced 

46 








THE 

TURES 


long as in “far”), which for some inscrutable 
reason inherent in the Larger Plan of the Uni¬ 
verse, have a curious attraction for prose writers. 
However much we may deplore this — and I 
would point out that although the present work 
is almost entirely written in prose, it is yet free 
from any sullying taints of this kind — we can¬ 
not but face the fact that this is so. After all, 
one must live, as authors are constantly saying 
among themselves . . . 

So my duty, I feel, is to lay down two guiding 
principles in this connexion : — 

I. If your book will contain incidents likely 
to be condemned as subversive of morality, ar¬ 
range for it to be printed privately, for sub¬ 
scribers only, like a telephone book. This is 
both safe and profitable. If, on the other hand, 
your book contains no such reprehensible mat¬ 
ter, use your literary friends to spread a rumour 
that it does, in a hidden, strange, devastating, 
occult way, and then publish it through the 
usual commercial channels. This is still safe, 

47 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


and, so long as a police prosecution does not 
cruelly disprove your rumour, it is even more 
profitable. 

II. To avoid unnecessary prosecutions, with 
their attendant expense, take care to master 
the difference between dots and asterisks. Al¬ 
most anything can be safely expressed with 
dots, thus ... or . . . ., or even 

.Asterisks, however, are decidedly 

more passionate, and their use (except for the 
legitimate purposes of footnotes) is very much 
frowned upon by policemen and magistrates. 
Since they generally indicate a long and silent 
interval in the narrative, they are apt to rouse 
suspicions of the kind that cannot easily be 
swept aside. Consider the difference between 
these two pieces of prose: 


1. And now he could sense that, save for 
that almost imperceptible click of the 
door-handle, the whole house was wropt 
in silence. At last, then, she had come. 

48 







THE 

TURES 



. . . It was too much to have hoped 

for, he thought when she slipped out 
again. 

2. And now he could sense that, except for 
that almost imperceptible click of the 
door-handle, the whole house was wropt 
in silence. At last, then, she had come. 

****** 

It was too much to have hoped for, 
he thought when she slipped out again. 

The dots, you will see, hasten the action, but 
the asterisks retard it, and give the reader time 
for private reflection and even brooding. Small 
wonder, then, that the French Legion of Honour 
(justly so named) has lately prohibited the use 
of this literary device by its members, whose 
vote against the tolerance of “la litterature as - 
terisquee” was passed with only one dissenting 
voice. 

With relief we turn to consider Poetry. This 
is a much simpler branch of Literature as it is 

49 







THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


usually shorter than Prose. It is a great saving 
of time to write poetry, and I can recommend 
it for the use of busy readers. 

Beginners would do well to keep to the most 
approved subjects of poetry, avoiding the more 
ambitious forms, such as the epic, the vers libre , 
or the five-lined quatrain, until they have mas¬ 
tered the elements. Subjects for poetry are 
usually rural in character. Birds, cows, sheep, 
trees, moons, frogs, mountains, brooks, horses, 
the wicked squire, the open road — all these 
are recommended by thoroughly practiced poets 
of the day. 

Do not suppose from this that poets practice 
all they sing. No, many of them live in the 
most urban, even suburban, surroundings, and 
rely entirely on their childhood recollections of 
field and farmyard to carry on their work. 
Many, again, follow quite prosaic vocations, 
and only meet their Muse by appointment on 
Saturday afternoons (Sundays, for religious 
poets), the rest of the week being occupied in 

50 





THE 

TURES 


useful and remunerative vocations such as criti¬ 
cism, or giving lectures, or grinding axes. 

Thus we see that Poetry would be a lost art 
if it were not for Agriculture, to which we now 
naturally come. 

Agriculture is widely practiced in country 
districts; luckily it is not spreading. This is 
fortunate, as otherwise the great cities, true 
homes of civilization and learning, would quickly 
be swallowed up by farm-land, ground-rents 
would rapidly fall, speculation in wheat would 
be impossible, and much unemployment and 
distress brought about. Nature is very wise. 

It is hardly necessary to enter on a detailed 
description of the practice of Agriculture. The 
reader who reads and combines our articles on 
Geology , Excavation, and Meteor ology will read¬ 
ily grasp the main principles, and details can 
easily be acquired by a few years’ experimental 
farming. 



51 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


m 

THE UTIONS 

Evolution . 

On no department of the world’s knowledge, 
it can be confidently stated, has modern Science 
lavished more time and painstaking research 
than on the subject of the Utions. One could 
write volumes, nay, whole libraries, on either of 
the great Utions . But it is our purpose to ad¬ 
here sternly to the principle of brevity, in other 
words to be brief. We shall now consider the 
first and most wondrous of the Utions , 'Evolution . 

History of Invertebrates . 

Long before man was man, he was a most 
amusing and variegated series of invertebrate 
creatures that wallowed in the pleistocene mud. 

52 







T HE 
UTIONS 


Indeed, Science has demonstrated that not 
even after the lapse of countless generations, of 
millions of cycles and aeons, the ancient pro¬ 
clivity remains, and even in the exalted realms 
of politics, and in not a few domains of the higher 
journalism, the atavistic impulse to the ooze, 
colloquially termed mud-slinging, persists. 
Among those fondest of this practice, it may be 
noted, a marked tendency to invertebracy is 
often observed. Thus does the patient labour 
of Science link up and correlate even the small¬ 
est and most casual of empirical truths. 

A Day in the Life of an Amoeba . 

Evolutionists agree that almost if not quite 
the earliest form of life on the planet was the 
amoeba (a creature which one drinks by millions 
in a glass of water, but requires a microscope 
for proper examination). The amoeba is an 
animal that feeds by the simple process of wrap¬ 
ping itself around its food — that is to say, it 
shoots out a part of its body, which we call a 

53 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


pseudopod, whereupon the pseudopod returns 
like a bit of elastic to the homogeneous mass of 
the amoeba’s body. Thus we see that this primi¬ 
tive creature is entirely composed of stomach. 
Certain species of modern man known to Science 
(e.g. profiteerensis , or warhog) have miraculously 
preserved this quaint characteristic clear through 
the ages — yet the stomach of the warhog has 
developed considerably beyond the dimensions 
of that of the amoeba. This too goes to prove 
our original point, that the marvels of Nature 
are simply marvellous. 

Now, it goes without saying that the editor 
of “The Outline of Everything,” being an edu¬ 
cated man, believes in Evolution. But a stern 
sense of academic fairness compels us to open 
the forum to our intellectual antagonists, and 
admit that there are persons (for whom we have 
the profoundest respect) who still refuse to 
give it credence. Among these may be noted 
Mr. G. K. Chesterton, who refuses to accept 
the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, one 

54 








THE 

UTIONS 





of the cardinal principles of this Ution, and, in¬ 
deed, has had the temerity to substitute for it 
the highly individualistic doctrine of the sur- 
vival of the fattest . It is said of this arch-heretic 
that, being told that his theory simply could 
not hold water, he boldly replied-that he had no 
use for a theory that could not hold beer. That 
we will fully and freely admit, is a pint in his 
favour, but it is not Science. 

For Adults Only . 

But let us be serious. A grave problem 
looms before us, for we cannot go much further 
in expounding the fundamental principles of 
this Ution without touching at least on the em¬ 
barrassing problem of Sex. It is with a certain 
hesitancy that we do this, but Science will be 
swerved from her majestic course by no con¬ 
siderations of squeamishness, no notions of 
false modesty. To the scientist every creature 
that lives and breathes upon this earth is deter¬ 
mined in its career, in its every instinctive move- 

55 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


ment, by that mysterious and potent force. The 
only strictly non-scientific specialists who have 
ever adequately appreciated this fact are the 
novelists, who, as every cultivated reader of 
to-day knows, have long since abandoned the 
archaic practice of writing their stories in chap¬ 
ters, and now compose them in sexions. There 
are those who think this is going too far. But 
it is not for us to criticise outside the strict 
province of our own subject, and we will leave 
that to be dealt with by our colleagues under the 
heading of Literature (see the tures ). 

The evolutionist sees the working of sex chiefly 
through the medium of the principle of natural 
selection. Natural selection is the mysterious 
force within the cave-woman that impelled her 
to choose as her mate the cave-man who had 
struck her over the head with a limb of an oak- 
tree, dragged her to his cave, and barred the 
exit with a rock. When two fierce ichthyosauri 
of the male species desired the same gentle fe¬ 
male, ages and ages and ages before, and making 

56 








“NATURAL SELECTION IS THE MYSTERIOUS FORCE WITHIN 
THE CAVE-WOMAN THAT IMPELLED HER TO CHOOSE 
AS HER MATE THE CAVE-MAN WHO HAD STRUCK 
HER OVER THE HEAD WITH A LIMB OF AN 
OAK-TREE.” Page 56. 





































THE 

UTIONS 





growling noises at her, locked their horns and 
bared their fangs in combat till the gigantic bulk 
of one lay lifeless, making a mountain of a val¬ 
ley, that same potent force within her led her to 
select the victorious ichthyosaurus as her mate. 
The other one was dead, and besides ichthyosauri 
were always scarce. So we see that natural 
selection is in its way a process of elimination. 

If now any reader arises to protest that Evo¬ 
lution is cruel, we reply that it is not for us, who 
have refrained from criticising the modern 
novelist, to criticise Nature. And besides, for 
all her cruelites, Nature has her compensations. 
She gives the innocent worm, nestling in the 
white texture of the apple, a protective colour¬ 
ing of elusive white that evades the eye of the 
devourer of the apple — protective colouration, 
the basis of the modern art of camouflage. Upon 
the meek pole-cat, which is born too proud to 
fight, she bestows a subtle protection that has 
many a time made the most intrepid of hunts¬ 
men not too proud for flight. 


57 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


And so Evolution goes on evoluting, staying 
in her course for no man. Evolution, it is 
worthy of note, was discovered by Darwin, but 
existed before him. It is derived from the verb 
to evolve, which in turn comes from the two 
words ex and volvo . Ex means “out of,” and 
volvo means “to turn,” and, in a broad sense, 
“to go.” Thus when we speak of the evolution 
of man’s intellect (see civilization — the direc¬ 
tor of ations is a friend of ours) we mean the 
process by which man is going out of his mind. 


Revolution . 

We flatter ourselves that our analysis and 
exposition of Evolution has been brief, and 
we will pass on now, with equal despatch, 
to a consideration of that other great ution 9 
Revolution. 

Just as Evolution comes from the word mean¬ 
ing to evolve, so Revolution is a derivation of 
the verb to revolve. It is for this reason that we 
speak of groups of revolutionaries as revolu- 

58 








T HE 
UTIONS 


tionary circles, and this process we see exempli¬ 
fied in the revolution of the Bolsheviks against 
the reactionaries, and of the Fascisti against the 
Bolsheviks. 

All revolutions are just ones, for a revolution 
is not really a revolution until it is successful, 
and all things that are successful are right. 
(See P. Nonsuch’s “From Simp to Success, 
or How I got that Way”). Seriously, though 
(for the preceding sentence is of course flip¬ 
pant, and P. Nonsuch is a great writer), revo¬ 
lutions are really nothing more or less than the 
symptom of a turning point in Evolution. 
Practically speaking, the most serious of the 
many inconveniences they involve is that they 
usually spin us so far around the circle that at 
the end we are back where we started, with a 
sick headache caused by dizziness. 

No consideration of revolution would be com¬ 
plete without at least a note devoted to another 
and minor ution , execution. Thus, Kerensky’s 
revolution in Russia failed because he omitted 

59 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



to execute Lenin and Trotsky, an absent-minded 
lapse for which he has never been quite forgiven. 
But that of Lenin and Trotsky will fail, as 
likely as not, because there was not ammunition 
enough to go round. 








THE ICS - 


.Esthetics — A symposium of the world’s 
greatest art critics specially arranged for 
“The Outline of Everything” and pre¬ 
sided over by Prof. Otto Finsterniss, 
R.A.O.B. 

When the editor of “The Outline of Every¬ 
thing” asked me to take charge of the arrange¬ 
ments for the article on Esthetics, I had (I ad¬ 
mit) a moment of hesitation. 

“It is a very large subject,” I said diffi¬ 
dently. 

“They are,” said he, firmly. “But I think 
you are the man to put this through. Go ahead. 
And spare no expense.” 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


^Esthetics a Practical Business . 

^Esthetics is the science of knowing what is 
beautiful and what isn’t. Of course, fashion 
comes into this, but in this work we must stick 
to the Great Unchanging Verities: A Latin 
proverbist has well said that concerning tastes, 
there is no disputing. But .Esthetics is not 
really a matter of taste. It is a matter of prin¬ 
ciples, and therefore open to a great deal of 
argument. This is fortunate, as for this reason 
it provides a livelihood for a large number of 
persons of a critical tendency who, left to their 
own tastes only, might easily starve. By con¬ 
tinually disputing each other’s principles and 
character, these people perform a useful func¬ 
tion in the social organism, providing much em¬ 
ployment for fountain-pen makers, compositors, 
newsagents, and waste-paper-pulping-works. 

The history and practice of Art, of course, 
is their speciality. And certainly it is the duty 
of every self-respecting citizen to know the dif¬ 
ference (even in price) between an Orcagna and 

62 








an Orpen, a Picasso and a Praxiteles. My 
duty therefore is to provide a short and simple 
conspectus of the Art of All the Ages. 

Drawbacks to Art . 

One word of explanation, ho,wever. It has 
not seemed at all necessary to me, as it has 
to the editors of certain other publications, to 
cumber my pages with innumerable paintings, 
most absurdly-out-of-date in spirit and crafts¬ 
manship, by celebrated artists of various schools 
and epochs. In the course of a busy life, I 
have often found that these painters (relying 
no doubt on their reputation as Old Masters) 
will represent the self-same subject (< e.g . the Judg¬ 
ment of Paris, the Battle of Agincourt, or even 
Biblical scenes) in totally different ways! This 
deception may seem almost incredible, but it 
is literally true, even among painters whose 
works command prices which no photographic 
artist, however skilled, could hope to ask for. 
Doubtless these artists (many of them Italians, 

63 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


a race noted for its dishonesty) relied on the 
wide dispersion of their productions over the 
vast continent of North America to conceal their 
discrepancies and gross inaccuracies. 

So that it has not seemed worth while to 
perpetuate in this high-minded publication the 
imaginative and distorted stories of such un¬ 
reliable witnesses of mythological and histori¬ 
cal events. 

To illustrate the history of Art, then, I have 
chosen from my own collection a work by an 
unknown artist which aroused so lively a con¬ 
troversy among experts on ^Esthetics that be¬ 
tween them they have covered the whole ground. 
And I propose to reprint here their critical es¬ 
says on the picture which will be found repro¬ 
duced on page 65. 

I. The History of King Asser-bapul-ad- 
usset XXVII. By Prof. Chung-ling- 
chung, lecturer in Assyriological Remains 
at the University of Wei-hai-wei. 

64 








65 


SUPERB PLATE GIVEN ABSOLUTELY FREE WITH THE OUTLINE OF EVERYTHING, ILLUSTRATING 

THE HISTORY OF ART. (SEE ESTHETICS.) 

















THE 

ICS 


The beautiful work in the collection of my es¬ 
teemed friend. Prof. Finsterniss, has been under 
my examination for some time. I find that it 
is a unique chronicle-picture, its pigmentation 
executed in coloured charcoal and rare herb- 
dyes procured from the N. W. plateaus of Tur¬ 
kestan, illustrative of the eventful reign of the 
great King Asser-bapul-ad-usset XXVII of As¬ 
syria (c. 3379-3302 b.c.). 

The lettering on the borders, though unde¬ 
cipherable by myself or any of my present staff, 
is manifestly the work of a scribe of that period. 
The representations of the river Euphrates by 
night, the scene of disaster in the centre, and 
the view of the desert city on the right, are 
obviously interpretations (primitive but strik¬ 
ing) respectively of the richness of Asser’s 
valley-kingdom, the constant perils of inunda¬ 
tion, and the rapidly growing prosperity of the 
capital, indicated by the lofty towers in the view. 

The heart is symbolic of Asser’s beneficent 
rule, and the miscellaneous objects grouped at- 

67 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


tractively round the whole composition are cer¬ 
tainly to be taken as representative of the pros¬ 
perous state of commerce within the borders 
of the kingdom. 

After all, why not ? 

C. 

L. 

C. 

II. And Yet Another Exhumation . By the 
Special Egyptological Enthusiast of “The 
Outline of Everything.” 

Not soon shall I forget that scene at Monk- 
hamen on the Blue Nile’s left, and most historic, 
bank, when the remarkable painting now in 
the collection of my esteemed friend, Prof. 
Finsterniss, was first brought to the light of day 
after three thousand five hundred years of sep¬ 
ulture and oblivion. Not soon. . . . It was 

a tremendous moment. . . . 



68 









“NOT SOON SHALL I FORGET THAT SCENE AT MONKHAMEN 
ON THE BLUE NILE’S LEFT. . . IT WAS A 

TREMENDOUS MOMENT.” Page 68. 





























































































































Appreciation of Egyptian Art . 

All day we had waited, breathless and quiver¬ 
ing, in the merciless beating of the blazing Egyp¬ 
tian sun. We stood there on the desert’s edge, 
our brave little band of chosen experts and tried 
special correspondents, with oilr eyes partly 
on the momentous and dramatic cavity wherein, 
we knew, the experts were opening, at that 
very moment, the last and innermost of all the 
inner rooms of the inmost suite, and partly too 
on the surrounding ridges and hillocks of glow¬ 
ing golden sand, black with the myriad throngs 
of dragomen, papyrologists, dahabeeyah-propri- 
etors, fellaheen, sightseers, pyramid-designers, 
cinematographers, luncheon-basket-proprietors, 
and unlicensed experts. Yes, something im¬ 
mense and tremendous seemed to be in the air. 
What secrets of history, what miracles of art 
would this long day of waiting bring forth ? 

At noon there was nothing to report, except 
that the blazing Egyptian sun was at its height. 
At one o’clock the myriad throngs were all seated 

69 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


on convenient tombs, engaged in gay, al-fresco 
luncheons. At two o’clock, there was still no 
news. Three o’clock came. And four o’clock. 
Five o’clock too. And then six o’clock. And 
by then the blazing Egyptian sun was beginning 
to sink in the Western sky, and our shadows, 
though still taut with suppressed excitement, 
were visibly lengthening along the golden glow¬ 
ing sand. But even although dinner at the 
Hotel Splendide-et-Carlton down at Monk- 
hamen seemed likely to be delayed, our spirits 
were high. We waited intrepidly. Our reward, 
we knew, was sure. 

And then, at 6.32 precisely, it came. 

Emotional Appeal of Egyptian AEsthetics . 

Suddenly, with dramatic suddenness, in fact, 
the curator was seen emerging into the light of 
the blazing Egyptian sun from out of the dark 
and historic cavity. He paused for an instant on 
the steps, and we could see, even from a dis¬ 
tance, that his hands were trembling and his 

70 







THE 

ICS 



face was pale. We hastened to telegraph this 
news to the waiting outside world. He was 
pale, we remarked, with the paleness of a man 
who has looked upon a beauty too marvellous 
for human eyes, and the hearts of all that vast 
and waiting assemblage went out to him. Some¬ 
thing, we felt certain, must have been discov¬ 
ered. It was a poignant and tremendous mo¬ 
ment. . . . 

But the next, 6.33, was even more so. For 
it was then that the two native bearers, trusty 
fellaheen both, emerged, treading each step 
of the rough, home-made stairs with endless pre¬ 
caution, and carrying, with laborious care and 
infinite pains, the plain, simple stretcher upon 
which rested the supreme and paramount dis¬ 
covery — this 3,500 year-old painting which 
was later to pass into Prof. Finsterniss’s worthy 
hands. And when, trembling with the emotion 
of having thus played their humble but necessary 
part in archaeological and aesthetic history, 
they laid their precious burden tenderly upon 

71 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


the glowing golden sand, we felt that this mo¬ 
ment (6.33) was not only poignant and tremen¬ 
dous, but also cluminative. 

And we were right (as usual). For when we 
came reverently forward, our pencils slipping 
between our nerveless fingers, to gaze upon the 
masterpiece of five-and-thirty centuries, we 
could see at a glance, even in the fading light 
of that Egyptian sun which had blazed so persist¬ 
ently all day and every day, that we were here 
at last in the presence of a beauty not hitherto 
vouchsafed to mortal eyes. And we too, hard¬ 
ened experts though we were, stood there 
pale and palpitating with emotion. By 6.34 
some of us were even weeping a little. . . . 


Stupendous Revelations Indeed . 

But by 6.38 most of us had handed our sheaves 
of telegraph forms to the waiting messenger 
lads, and a great day’s work was done. Next 
morning all the civilized world would know of the 
blinding new light shed by this discovery on the 

72 








tariff controversy of 1,622 b.c., and how all the 
common and malicious gossip about the Court 
of good Monkhahotep XXII was shewn, by the 
beautiful inscriptions around the picture, to be 
merely scandal, false and vile, and how this paint¬ 
ing had proved, once and for all,^ the supremacy 
of the Pavementamen school of draughtsmen. 

It had all been very, very poignant. And, as 
we wended our way back to dinner, we felt that 
even that might be an anti-climax, if we had 
not been absolutely certain that next morning 
the Egyptian sun would surely rise once more 
above those glowing golden sands, and that 
next evening would bring, no less surely, some 
moment even more tremendous, even more 
culminative. . . . 

III. An Historical and Appreciative Art- 
Summary of the Finsterniss Collection. 
(Specially contributed by Doktor Hans 
Undsoweiter, the world-famous au¬ 
thority on the History of Art.) 

73 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


Contra-positional Pigmentation in XV Century 

Art . 

About 1484, eight years before Columbus set 
sail on his memorable voyage, the Burgundian 
influence had begun to impinge on the pseudo- 
Primitive tendencies of the Hispano-Suiza school 
of religious painters, and, combined, but never 
altogether unified, with a not imperceptible tend¬ 
ency towards the direct representationalism 
of the Mantuan followers of the great Ghent 
Masters, there emerged, in the lower valleys 
of the Cretin cantons, a new group of genre art¬ 
ists to whom Prof. Zwischen has given the ap¬ 
propriate name of the Intermediate Progres¬ 
sives, but whom I myself prefer to describe 
as the Cretin Primitives. They delighted in 
the frank recognition of the contra-positional 
attitude towards composition and a highly 
mannered coloration and pigmentation which 
easily recalls to the critic the painted bas-reliefs 
at San Martinengo, in Lower Calabria, and by 
1486, six years before Columbus set sail on his 

74 








THE 

ICS 


memorable voyage, the impact of this delight¬ 
ful influence was making itself felt as far north 
as a line drawn between Citroen-le-Petit (Poic- 
tou) on the west, and Szechynsczpol (Prszmon- 
tszsz) on the east. The celebrated ceiling in the 
Stadtsaal at Mermenstburg-am-Oder is both 
typical and representative, but north of this 
imaginary line the sphere of Cretin influence 
is hardly perceptible, although Prof, von der 
Goltz, Ph. D., claims that the painted crockery 
of Stjornheim (Sweden) shows a decided leaning 
towards a semiattitudinal mannerism not un¬ 
connected with the vitalistic grouping of figures 
characteristic of Gil de Siloe or the less familiar 
Mateo de la Palmoliva. 

Geographical Influence on ^Esthetics. 

These were stirring times indeed. In 1487, five 
years before Columbus set sail on his memorable 
voyage, Franz von Ochs had returned to his 
atelier at Uberalles, bearing with him traces 
of the influence of Umbria and Tuscany and the 

75 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


Northern Italian hinterland generally, as his 
unforgettable canvasses at the Palazzo Isotta 
Fraschini in Rome will prove to the most casual 
observer. Nor did he return in vain. His 
vivifying influence was soon perceptibly dis¬ 
cernible in . . . 

(Dokt. Undsoweiter’s lucid exposition 
of 15th century art will already be suffi¬ 
ciently clear to our quick-witted readers 
without our printing the whole text of his 
brilliant commentary. — Editor, O. of E.) 



76 







THE 

OGRAPHIES 



V 


THE OGRAPHIES 


The Future of Geography. 

In no branch of Science has there been a more 
fundamental and radical revision of ancient tenets 
and long-accepted theories consequent upon the 
vast upheaval brought about by the great and uni¬ 
versal cataclysm of the World War than in the 
subject of Geography. Before the war, for ex¬ 
ample, we used to be taught that the world 
was round — but already it has been flattened 
out considerably by the Conference at Versailles, 
and there are those who predict that it will re¬ 
semble the shape of a pancake before the two 
hundred and twenty-five sub-committees of 
the Reparations Commission have completed 
their agenda. Also, the world used to be re¬ 
garded as one perfect, solid sphere — but since 


77 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


the war it has been divided into more segments 
than a boarding house apple pie. 

Equally obsolete from the standpoint of post¬ 
war Science is the study of geography by means 
of maps and atlases, emphasizing as they do 
economically useless mountains in place of oil 
wells, spheres of influence instead of offices of 
the American Relief Administration. But for 
this problem, too, Science has discovered a 
solution. In place of the outworn map and 
atlas, the modern geographer uses a table of 
international exchanges. By their roubles, yen, 
pesos, dinars, kronen, marks and francs, ye shall 
know them! 

Distribution of Industries . 

Another phase of the progress of modern 
geography is the discovery of the fundamental 
subdivisions of the world, not into land and 
water, as the geographers of the old school did, 
or into empires, republics and kingdoms, but 
rather into countries that are dry and countries 

78 










THE 

OGRAPHIES 


that are wet. But do not confuse this with the 
rainfall charts often printed in the best atlases. 
This is something quite different. Also, the 
sphere of influence of Hollywood, California, 
traced the world over by the special movie ex¬ 
perts of “The Outline of Everything,” is a sub¬ 
ject that will reward the study of faithful stu¬ 
dents. In conclusion, it is worthy of note that 
in so far as maps are still in use, the capitals 
of nations and the sites of famous battles have 
been robbed of their old delusive importance. 
Lausanne, Geneva and Genoa for the conference 
industry ; Detroit for Henry and Hollywood for 
Charlie; and Mosul for oil and the sanctity of 
mandates — these are the key-points that a se¬ 
rious student of “The Outline of Everything” 
should know. 

Photography ( Spirit ). 

We take spirit photography as the only 
branch of photography worthy of serious treat¬ 
ment as a science, the other forms having been 

79 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


i ■ ■■ M 4., 

almost entirely appropriated by our realistic 
novelists. Spirit photography is so called be¬ 
cause one cannot expect to obtain satisfactory 
results in this direction without entering into the 
spirit of the thing. A sensitive soul, and a plate 
equally sensitized by an exposure or two previ¬ 
ous to the experiment, are the two essential 
items in the equipment of the spirit photog¬ 
rapher. 

Total Rout of Scepticism. 

At enormous expense and with infinite pains, 
the author of this article recently obtained a 
spirit photograph that is herewith given as an 
illustration to “The Outline of Everything.” 
It will blast once and for all the disparaging and 
invidious detractions of all those who take it 
upon themselves to revile and calumniate any¬ 
thing in the Progress of Science that is illogical 
and therefore beyond the reach of their puny 
intelligence. And we trust, not without a cer¬ 
tain feeling of satisfaction at our strenuous 

80 










AT AN ENORMOUS EXPENSE THE AUTHOR HAS OBTAINED A 
SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPH ACTUALLY TAKEN IN THE HOME¬ 
LY INTERIOR OF A CORNER SALOON IN A LITTLE 
VILLAGE IN KENT. Page 80. 






















THE 

OGRAPHIES 


efforts bearing fruit, that it will bear out con¬ 
clusively our contention that in “The Outline of 
Everything” we are giving a lot for the money. 
Note the other worldly grace of those ethereal 
figures! The sublime look on their faces, as, 
joining hands, they trip the light fantastic ! The 
elfin beauty of their costume, and the puck-like 
fancy that darts from their disingenuous, earth- 
free eyes ! And yet we can certify, not only by 
the sworn statement of the author of this article, 
attested by the editor of “The Outline of 
Everything,” but by the affidavits of no less 
than a dozen witnesses, that this very photo¬ 
graph was actually taken in the homely interior 
of a corner saloon in a little village in Kent, in 
England. 



81 








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EVERYTHING 



VI 

THE OSOPHIES 

The terminal ending “osophy” is in reality and 
in essence a vulgarization. Its original form was 
“ossify,” meaning “to bone.” And those of 
our readers who have studied in their schooldays 
the history of Phil osophy, one of the two great 
branches of this department of human knowl¬ 
edge, will readily understand why the termi¬ 
nation thus disguised itself. 

Editorial Presence of Mind . 

The other of the great 0sophies is, of course, 
Theosophy. Consistently with our immutable 
policy of treating one phase of the world’s 
wisdom at a time, and not treating more than 
is absolutely necessary, we have decided to 
deal with only one of these two difficult sub- 

82 








THE 

OSOPHIES 


jects, since, by reason of their all-embracing 
character, one must necessarily include the 
other in the long run. There was here a di¬ 
lemma. Which was it to be ? Well, we referred 
the matter to our consultant organizing su¬ 
pervisor, Sir J. Arthur Wellswater, and he, 
taking from his pocket two half dollars (just 
enough to pay for one of his precious words of 
wisdom!), tossed them in the air. The result, 
he said, was “both heads,” and bade us proceed 
with: 

A BRIEF BUT NEVERTHELESS COMPREHENSIVE 
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY FROM PLATO TO EINSTEIN 

Idealism in the Home. 

We have seen (cf. the Bedtime Story of Man¬ 
kind) how Plato was the great exponent of the 
doctrine that whatever is, isn’t. What this 
means, dear reader, is that the chair you are 
sitting on is not a real chair at all, and the table 
beside you is not a real table, the roof over your 
head is not a real roof, and the Outline you are 

83 


4 







% 


THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



reading is not a real Outline. We realize that 
at first blush, to one unacquainted with the 
metaphysical metempsychoses and inherent in¬ 
volutions of philosophical talk, this will be diffi¬ 
cult to comprehend. But if you will only stop 
to reflect, dear reader, that the whisky you 
have been drinking since the war has not been 
real whisky, and the cigars you have been smok¬ 
ing have not been real cigars, perhaps the prob¬ 
lem will be brought a little nearer home. 


Hopes for a Future Existence . 

What Plato meant, however, was that the 
chair you are sitting on is only a sort of crude 
model of a Perfect Chair, containing the essence 
of everything that a chair should be, which is 
locked up somewhere in heaven, presumably 
in the Weights and Measures Department. The 
same applies, of course, to the tables and the 
roof. . . . Whether it applies also to the 

whisky and the cigars, one can only guess, for 
Plato did not say. . . . But we have our hopes. 

84 













































> 



Plato (like Bernard Shaw) wrote his philo¬ 
sophical treatises in the form of dialogues. If, 
like Bernard Shaw, he had only written prefaces 
to explain them, the world to-day would be 
richer by the absence of at least forty thousand 
philosophical treatises, and 66,423 professors of 
philosophy. But he didn’t, and so he was mis¬ 
understood. For example, Plato’s idea of love 
was what is technically known in Literature 
(cf. the Tures) as Hot Stuff. But to-day, when 
we speak of Platonic love, we think of a middle- 
aged flapper cooing words of intellectual affec¬ 
tion, and a friend of the opposite sex who is 
nothing but what a brother, or even a grandson, 
should be. 

Aristotle, a rival philosopher, was the origi¬ 
nator of Scientific method in philosophy. The 
Scientific method consists in learning the facts 
— any facts at all will do; it’s best to take a 
few small ones at the start — and then building 
theories around these. 


85 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


The Great Divide . 

All of us, dear reader, whether we know it or 
not, are either Platonists or Aristotelians. This 
is a hard and fast classification, and it is a great 
landmark in human knowledge. Only once in 
the history of philosophy was a more rigid basis 
of classification ever reached, and the credit of 
this discovery, curiously enough, belongs to an 
eminent brewer, who divided all mankind into 
the Wattlyers and the Minesas. The Wattlyer, 
according to this authority, is the man who says 
“What’ll yer have?” — and the Minesa is the 
man who says “Mine’s a beer.” Unfortunately, 
this classification has no official standing, since 
brewers are seldom allowed to air their views 
in scholarly journals or from the rostra of our 
great seats of learning. 

Caution in Philosophic Speculation. 

We come now to the next two great philos¬ 
ophers to philosophize along original lines — 
Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon. Descartes 

86 








is celebrated for the greatest piece of foolishness, 
and also one of the greatest bits of wisdom, ever 
discovered. The foolishness is in his historic 
remark that common sense is a quality shared by 
all men. Nowadays we know that it is not only 
shared by all men but is very rare among philos¬ 
ophers. The piece of wisdom was in the say¬ 
ing: “I think, therefore I am.” Even this 
has been amended, however, to read: “I think, 
therefore I think I am.” One cannot be too 
certain of anything, dear reader, especially if 
one is a philosopher. 

Francis Bacon gave to the world a book en¬ 
titled “The Advancement of Learning,” in which, 
among other things, he pointed out the four 
kinds of delusion that men usually labour under 
when they think they are thinking. The mod¬ 
ern sciences of Publicity and Propaganda, how¬ 
ever, have given us at least forty new ones to get 
on with. 

Kant was the bright spirit who first demon¬ 
strated, with watertight logic, that the end 

87 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


justifies the means. Getting to the end of one 
of Kant’s books is justified by any means at all. 
We discovered this for ourselves at school, and 
bound “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” 
inside the sober covers of his “Critique of Pure 
Reason.” Kaiser Wilhelm II and the editor 
of “The Outline of Everything” thus stand to¬ 
gether the two most eminent disciples of this 
German philosopher. 

It’s no good mentioning the name of Nietzsche 
to our intelligent and discerning readers, for 
they would impatiently exclaim : “Oh! Shaw!” 
And it’s no good mentioning Emerson either, 
since several great inspirers of the American 
millions have copyrighted him. That brings 
us logically to a chap named Einstein, the 
greatest, save one, of living philosophers, and 
the inventor of jazz philosophy. 


Progress of Relativity Assured . 

Einstein once remarked that there were only 
three people in the world capable of under- 

88 









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OSOPHIES 


standing his philosophy, the theory of relativity. 
He was wrong. There are four, the fourth 
being the editor of “The Outline of Everything,” 
and when the vast and multitudinous throng 
of readers of “The Outline of Everything” 
have digested the compressed knowledge, the 
tabloid learning, the pemmican wisdom of our 
epoch-making Outline, there will be many, 
many thousands more. 

The way to understand these theories is to 
visualize them. Every night before I go to bed, 
I myself visualize at least one branch of human 
knowledge. Well, when I first read about Ein¬ 
stein’s theory, in my favourite Sunday news¬ 
paper, said I to myself: “A-ha! Now what 
does this remind you of?” I closed my eyes 
and thought hard and long. And then I had 
an inspiration — in fact, an Inspiration ! This 
is what I visualized: 

Years, years ago, in the days of my youth, 
before I became the world’s greatest outlinist, 
I was but a poor rural swain, and my tasks in- 

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THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


eluded that of feeding the chickens, both at 
morn and sundown. Well, there was one fowl 
in the flock that was rather peculiar — it was 
a hen in all particulars save one, which was 
that it had webbed feet. In my ignorance I 
used to regard it as a hen with the feet of a 
duck. 

But later, when I was reading about Einstein’s 
theory of relativity, it all came back to me with 
a rush. Why was that strange creature, that 
prodigy of nature, necessarily a hen? Why 
could it not be a duck , with the head, neck and 
body of a hen? . . . And in that flash of 

Inspiration, that moment of Vision, I had dis¬ 
covered : 

The Theory of Relativity ! 

And now I ask myself: 

Why can’t things fall up as well as down ? 

Why does the road cross the chicken ? 

Why is it that I, who held my position as a 
tramcar conductor for only two weeks, after¬ 
wards became a great Efficiency Expert ? 

90 







THE 

OSOPHIES 


The answer is : I do not know. . . . Or, 

to put it more succinctly, I dunno. . . . 

It is the secret of . . . relativity. 



91 








THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


VII 

THE ISMS 

The Isms are indeed a complicated subject. 
They are frequently a subject of bitter contro¬ 
versy, and something about the sound of them 
seems to get some people on the raw. How 
complicated they are can readily be apprehended 
when one considers that the Isms are for the 
most part a post-war manifestation. Already, 
according to the Secretary of the Interior, 3,275 
varieties have been notified; and the total 
swells with every new quarterly review. 

Normally, of course, we should treat each of 
these Isms separately and at length, for it is 
never the policy of “The Outline of Everything” 
to slur over any department of human knowl¬ 
edge, however brief its lineage. But we shall 
not insult the intelligence of our readers with 
this needless labour. We recommend each of 

92 







THE 

ISMS 


them instead to manufacture a few Isms at 
home in his spare time. 

All that is needed is a pair of tortoise-shell 
rimmed glasses, a dictionary, and a plan for 
remaking the world. The last is quite essential, 
but every free-born self-respecting American has 
at least one. The dictionary will provide two 
big words where one grew before. The glasses 
(or at least the rims) are indispensable at the 
photographer’s. 

And meanwhile, leaving you to practice this 
mild amusement by your fireside ( N.B . No 
prizes are available . Send no results to this 
office.) , we shall proceed to offer you the benefits 
of a lifetime of research in the most firmly es¬ 
tablished of the Isms, viz.: 

A CONCISE AND INFORMATIVE ANALYTICAL DIC¬ 
TIONARY OF THE ISMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN 

Spiritualism . A spook in the wheels of progress. 
Liberalism . Honesty is the best policy (cf. 
the works of Lord Riddlebrook, passim). 

93 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


Liberalism is the next best. 

Socialism. An ingenious and labour-saving de¬ 
vice for running the world on the plan of 
Sing-Sing. 

Conservatism. The doctrine of self-preserva¬ 
tion. 

Individualism. Well, it follows logically, doesn’t 
it? 

Pelmanism. The Hire Education for all. 
Coueism. See Browning’s great poem, “The 
Pip Passes.” 

Mendelism. A science teaching us to be careful 
in the choice of ancestors. 

Industrialism. A form of sabotage committed 
on the Twentieth Century by the Nineteenth. 
Freudianism. A complex study for the simple- 
minded. 

And so on. It’s easier than you’d thought, 
isn’t it? We suggest that our readers amuse 
themselves with the Higher Journalism and 
Anachronism as simple exercises to be performed 
at home. You’ll soon get into it. 

94 





THE 

ONOMIES 



VIII 


THE ONOMIES 


There are Stars and Stars. 


Among the Onomies, priority is rightly given to 
Astronomy, by reason of its obvious seniority 
and the lofty dignity of its subject-matter. You 
may find that many contemporary writers, es¬ 
pecially those with political tendencies, are in¬ 
clined to give Ec onomy the foremost place. But 
the editor of “The Outline of Everything” re¬ 
fuses to be led astray by any such ephemeral 
considerations. From boyhood up he has always 
been deeply impressed, not only by the surpris¬ 
ingly large number of stars, but also by the 
strange beauty of their names (which one could 
almost imagine were deliberately invented), the 
unvarying regularity of their appearance and 


95 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


disappearance, and the skill of their arrange¬ 
ment in the heavens. 

The study of the stars was originated by the 
Chaldeans, who, as every text-book, however 
humble, will tell you, were the first astronomers. 
Indeed, in all the works of reference available 
in our palatial offices, we can find nothing else 
recorded of the Chaldeans, so we may fairly 
assume that they were an industrious people of 
nocturnal habits, who were thus able to get a 
good start made on this fascinating subject so 
peculiarly their own. After their time, however, 
astronomy continued to make rapid progress, 
owing to the invention of: 

1. The telescope, an instrument which, if 
held the right way up, enables us to ex¬ 
amine the stars and constellations at 
close quarters. If held the wrong way 
up, however, the telescope is of little or 
no use. 

2. The compass, an ingenious device like 
a clock with a loose hand, which enables 

96 






THE 

ONOMIES 


those who know how to work it, to lo¬ 
cate the Pole Star at a glance. It is also 
found useful by mariners and political 
writers who have run short of metaphori¬ 
cal expressions. 

Eclipses not to be Dreaded . 

The discoveries of astronomy have done much 
to secure the stability of modern society. In 
less enlightened days, for instance, we should 
never have had the advantage of old Mr. Moore’s 
useful almanack, in which the influence of the 
stars on Irish discontent, royal marriages, potato¬ 
planting, and other important activities is de¬ 
scribed for our guidance. Eclipses of the sun, 
again, were formerly the cause of much needless 
panic owing to their total unexpectedness. But 
the modern man need no longer fear these 
troublesome phenomena. He has only to look 
at his pocket diary to find the exact date and 
time of the next one. It will probably be in¬ 
visible at Greenwich anyway, but in any case 

97 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


it is generally arranged by the Meteorological 
Office that it shall be wet or cloudy that day. 
So, thanks to astronomy, there is nothing to 
fear, and the long reign of superstition is, here 
at least, at an end. 

The Immensity of Immensity Proved. 

But before we conclude our outline of this 
ever-fascinating subject, we must try to bring 
home to our readers something of the immense 
immensity of the spaces and universes which 
form its realm. And this we can best do, not 
by rhetoric, not by diagrams, not by poetic 
flights, but simply by asking him a few questions. 
When he can answer “Yes” to them, he can be 
sure that he has realized the greatness of creation 
quite as fully as his editor. Here they are: 

do you realize: 

1. That the distance from the offices of 
“The Outline” to the sun is 342,568,922 
miles, but that if the present work were 
printed in one continuous line of type it 

98 






THE 

ONOMIES 


would only stretch 738,952 miles, or 
roughly ^ of the way ? 

This shows, as nothing else can, the 
immensity of our task. 

2. That the total ages of the whole staff 
(including typists) of “The Outline” is 
only 73,428 years, 5 months, while the 
total ages of the principal planets and 
their satellites amount to no less than 
4,637,825,617,936,476,372,654,138,849 
years, 4 months (figures to April 1,1923) ? 

This should teach us humility, should 
it not ? 

3 . That the Earth moves on its axial hy¬ 
potenuse at an orbital centrifugal speed 
of 43,289 miles per second,or 4,637,833,956 
times faster than the maximum speed of the 
Editor’s travelling chair (see illustration) ? 

4. That it takes at least 358,255 years for 
a single ray of light to travel from Saturn 
to the offices of “The Outline”? 

And this shows that even we cannot 

99 




i > 3 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



be expected to be very up-to-date in our 
news of astronomy. 

However, we subpend a useful and lavish 
(though uncoloured) Plate which will help our 
readers to recognize the principal features of the 
celestial firmament (weather permitting): — 

* * 

Venus (in the ascendant). Venus (in the descendant). 

* * 

Jupiter (as seen from Mercury). Mercury (as seen from Jupiter). 

* 

The Earth 

(as seen from Neptune). 


Telephoto view of the principal canal of Mars. 

*********** 

*********** 

*********** 

The Milky Way 
(close-up). 

From the far, frozen silences of the immense 
infinitudes of this and other solar systems, it is 
a relief to turn to a less ambitious Onomy — 
Domestic Ec onomy. 


100 






THE 

ONOMIES 


The beauty of the terminological system of 
classification is here made even more apparent 
than usual: for under no mere alphabetical 
system* could such a transition be accomplished 
without a jerk, while Man is here shown in his 
relation to Eternity. It is a solemn thought 



A Sensational Departure in Education . 

In general, domestic economy is the art of 
keeping oneself alive. The main ground of 
this fascinating subject, then, has been ade¬ 
quately covered in other parts of this invaluable 
work. But since it is our duty to complete rather 
than to repeat , we propose to describe for the 
benefit of our eager readers the process of knock¬ 
ing in a nail , an operation of domestic economy 
which has hitherto never been adequately de¬ 
scribed in any existing work. And regardless 

* “Except in the case of Chu-pp-L g, supreme encyclopaedist to 
the Msfu dynasty, c. 5348 b.c.” (J. K. L., Chinese expert). “We 
have heard this before” (J. A. W., Editor). “But it is quite true” 
(J. K. L., Chinese expert). “It is rude to interrupt” (J. A. W., Editor). 

101 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


of expense, we have commissioned a well-known 
Brooklyn joiner, with fifty-three years of all¬ 
round nail-driving experience, to give us the 
benefit of his advice. Here is his article: 

To knock in a nail . Procure a nail and a 
hammer (or some similar instrument, neither 
too light to be ineffective nor too heavy to be 
unwieldy). Take these to the scene of work, 
being careful not to forget one or the other (as 
one without the other is practically useless, 
except for self-defence), and remembering also 
which is which. Then choose the place where 
you wish to knock in the nail. Nails, I should 
say here, may be knocked in perpendicularly, 
horizontally, or sometimes vertically. 

Empiric Theory of Nails. 

Ascertain which is the head and which the 
point of the nail. In fifty-three years experience 
in many of the best houses of this country, I have 
seen numerous nails, but in almost all cases I 
have found it easy to distinguish one end from 

102 






THE 

ONOMIES 


the other. As a rough working rule, you may 
take it that the pointed end of the nail is its 
point, while the other end (opposite it, following 
along the line of the nail) is the head. 

Grip the nail in the left hand, and place it 
firmly against the wall or board in such a way 
that the point of the nail touches the spot where 
you design to drive it in. Then clasp the ham¬ 
mer by the handle in the right hand (the hands 
may be reversed if you are left-handed), and 
strike the head of the nail with the hammer. 
Strike sharply, and watch the result with at¬ 
tention. If you have followed these instruc¬ 
tions accurately, you will find that the point of 
the nail is beginning to disappear into the wall! 

Encouraged by this, continue to strike the 
head of the nail with the hammer until you 
have driven it as far as you require for your pur¬ 
pose, whatever that may be. Then cease strik¬ 
ing. A little practice will soon make you per¬ 
fect, and, with a few exceptions, I have never 
known this process to fail. 

103 






THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


An interesting point in connection with this 
is that from this operation is derived the phrase 
“to hit the nail on the head”—and this, of 
course, is one of the main objects of every writer 
in “The Outline of Everything.” 



Results of Gastronomical Research in the XX 

Century . 

Gastr onomy is an important subject not un¬ 
connected with the preceding theme. And here 
too we have found a strange gap in human knowl¬ 
edge : no reliable account of the fundamental 
process of making water boil is extant! We 
hasten to supply this astonishing deficiency, 
our London office having procured the expert 
opinion of the world-famous chef, Maitre Xavier 
Crillon, who has given the matter long and no 
doubt profound consideration. His instructions 
were to carry out a series of careful experiments, 
and telegraph the result (regardless of expense) 

104 






THE 

ONOMIES 


from his palatial cuisine in Paris. We repro¬ 
duce his telegram in extenso: — 

Editor Outline of Everything , London , W. C.2, 
Angleterre. Do not watch kettle , X . Crillon . 



105 






THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


IX 

HOW TO PREPARE AN OUTLINE AT 
HOME IN YOUR SPARE EVENINGS 

By the Editor 

An Outline at home! In spare evenings! At 
first blush this may seem to be a stupendous 
task which we propose to our readers! Spare 
evenings indeed! When the Outline of Agri¬ 
culture itself took six years, six thousand-odd 
experts, and $200,000 of the best money and 
brains in England to produce ? When the Out¬ 
line of Insects alone cost a cool million dollars, 
including the cost of advertising, machinery 
and plant ? Surely, our readers gasp, there 
must be some mistake ? 

But no. One thing that readers of “The Out¬ 
line of Everything” may always apprehend of 
their editor is that he never makes a mistake. 

106 






HOW TO PREPARE 
AN OUTLINE 


His decision is final. 

We are in earnest. 

An Instructive Hobby . 

We shall make good our assertion that this 
is possible, daring as it may seem. We shall 
demonstrate clearly, in such wise that even the 
most feeble-minded of our friends may compre¬ 
hend how the busiest of our readers may yet 
find time to indulge in the pleasurable (and by 
no means unprofitable) pastime of Making an 
Outline at Home in his Spare Evenings. 

Well, to begin with, we shall assume that 
each of our eager clients has at his (or her) dis¬ 
posal, a strong pair of scissors, a paste-pot, and 
some sort of encyclopaedia — the old one that 
Grandpapa used to have, and Grandmama 
kept persistently in the attic, will do well enough. 

Place these articles ready to your hand. 

We Must Remember the Past . 

Then decide definitely what field of human 

107 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


knowledge your Outline is to cover. (Choose 
a special one, for we also assume that in the 
early stages of your training you will not at¬ 
tempt the stupendous task of doing an “Out¬ 
line of Everything” on your own — a task at 
which we are ourselves aghast.) Suppose, for 
example, you decide on an Outline of Indige¬ 
nous Wildflowers and Pansies, a nice homelike 
subject for beginners. Well, your first con¬ 
cern will be a nice picture for the frontispiece, 
the importance of which can hardly be over¬ 
estimated. Look carefully through your ency¬ 
clopaedia, and see whether it doesn’t contain 
a good striking picture of some sort — a Nubian 
chimpanzee eating pansy roots, or a wild pansy 
attacking a water-weed, let us say. But since 
the Headline is the most important thing, don’t 
worry overmuch if the picture does not fit this 
conception exactly, for you can safely leave 
quite a lot to your readers’ imagination. And 
if, by some unlucky chance, your encyclopaedia 
does not contain any pictures of wild pansies 

108 









t 


HOW TO PREPARE 
AN OUTLINE 


at all, get one designed by the nearest artist, 
not mentioning your motive. Or, if you don’t 
know any artists, go to the secondhand book¬ 
stores and carefully inspect the cheapest books. 
Above all things, the editor of an Outline must 
be resourceful, and economical. . . . 

And so, having discovered the theory of il¬ 
lustrating an Outline, let us apply the same 
principles to the body of the book as to the 
cover. (Professional outlinists, of course, must 
hie them to the publishers and purchase the 
original blocks of the illustrations at a standard 
rate of 20 cents per sq. inch—a fact which ac¬ 
counts for the staggering expenditure incurred 
by the publishers of the better-known Outlines 
in dear old England, where all good Outlines 
grow. But for one intended only for the amuse¬ 
ment of the family circle, this is unneces¬ 
sary : the clipped-out illustrations will do very 
well.) 

And then the text. 



109 







THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


Use of One's Critical Faculties . 

Well, obviously it is no good merely to copy out 
the old encyclopaedia. Science and learning ad¬ 
vance at so alarming a speed nowadays that 
new realms are conquered in even a fortnight. 
Do not therefore just go and copy out the page 
where it says: “The wild pansy of the pre-gla¬ 
cial period, when aroused in defence of its young, 
stiffened its stem, congealed its leaves into icy 
prickles, and with a slight hissing sound emitted 
a dense and poisonous pollen into the surround¬ 
ing atmosphere.” 

No. Instead you must cut this sentence out 
and paste it on a large sheet of white paper. 
Then write legibly in the margin: “It was 

formerly thought that-” and draw a bold 

black arrow leading round to the words: “The 
wild pansy . . .” And the printer will do 

the rest. Then, at the foot of the paragraph, 
write: “But we see nothing to substantiate 
this belief.” (For of all things an Outlinist 
must hold himself sternly impartial, with a 

110 









HOW TO PREPARE 
AN OUTLINE 


mind open to all and any facts, yet never swayed 
by the howling blasts of controversy.) 

And it will certainly help to insert a few foot¬ 
notes. Nothing gives such a good impression 
of afterthoughts — and second thoughts, as is 
well known, are always best: it is even said 
that Mr. — well, somebody of international re¬ 
pute — is contemplating a gigantic Outline, 
which will consist entirely of footnotes. A 
noble project! Well, the best method is to 
put an asterisk (*) beside each word which 
you do not understand, and a dagger (f) beside 
the statements which you do not believe, or 
do not like. This will clarify your thoughts 
and stimulate those of your readers. 

Pender s Paste is The Best ( Advt .). 

Of course, what is said in the footnotes does 
not matter very much. The point to remem¬ 
ber is that in these you must never accept any 
statement, even your own, uncritically. Take 
nothing at its face value. Be suspicious of ex- 

111 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 

perts, an overpaid race with closely-guarded 
interests of their own. Challenge. Question. 
Spare neither shears nor paste-pot. But always 
remember the guiding motto of this memorable 
age — “Safety First”—and never paste up 
anything without challenging its credentials. 

And then your index. This is invaluable for 
easy reference to the vast congeries of facts 
which you will soon have put together. And 
remember that you must make it alphabetical, 
and with reference both to the text and to the 
footnotes which contradict it. This will prove 
your impartiality. 

So persevere, and you can soon produce an 
outline of anything you like. And at a very 
reasonable fee, I, Hector B. Toogood, will con¬ 
sent to write a critical introduction to it my¬ 
self — or even sign my name to it, if you your¬ 
self prefer to remain in modest anonymity. 

And then — it will all be ready for the market. 

H. B.T. 






BEDTIME STORY 
OF MANKIND 



X 

A BEDTIME STORY OF MANKIND 

(Time: 6.00 p.m. Wave Length : 1 metre.) 
N.B. These pages may be detached from the 
main body of the Outline and taken up to the 
nursery separately. They are printed on spe¬ 
cially woven untearable paper, and, being also 
water-proof, may be given to the children in 
the bath. 

Dear chil-dren, be at your ease! 

I, Hector B. Toogood, was once a child my¬ 
self, and in fact I bore the name Hector B. 
Too-good at an early age, though my parents 
often called me Bertie. Now list-en in careful-ly. 

On an ad-joining page you will find a pic¬ 
ture of a foot cross-ing a riv-er. Do you see 
it? The pic-ture is sym-bolic. Look at the 
picture, and see if it does not remind you of 

113 









THE OUTLINE O 
EVERYTHING 


some great feat of history. Surely you have 
heard of Csesar crossing the Rubi-con and of 
Washington crossing the Del-a-ware! Well, 
as a meth-od of dem-on-strating (that’s a big 
word, isn’t it ?) my love for you, chil-dren, I am 
go-ing to give a prize of my col-lected po-ems, 
in fourteen (14) vol-umes to the child who cuts 
out this pic-ture and col-ours it most beau-ti- 
fully. This will teach you the importance of 
high col-ouring in history, which can hardly be 
over-est-imated, children. Also, I will give a 
prize of my col-lected inspir-ation-al essays, in 
thirteen (13) vol-umes, to the fortu-nate child 
who finds the greatest number of ti-tles for this 
picture. 

Now, the fol-lowing are all the facts of hist¬ 
ory that any intel-li-gent boy or girl needs to 
know: 


1. The An-cient World . 

The an-cient Greeks lived in Greece, and the 
an-cient E-gyp-tians lived in Egypt. (The 

114 







Napoleon Crosses the Beresina, 1812 . 


BEDTIME STORY 
OF MANKIND 



i' t Z 61 *3UITI£[ Olft UO M3t^\ 



Cassar Crosses the Rubicon, B.C. 49- 

AN OUTLINE OF HISTORY FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T 

READ. 

115 


Washington Crosses the Delaware, 1776 . 




















THE OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


U-top-ians, how-ever, live most-ly in Lon-don 
and New York.) 


2. Egypt. 

E-gypt was the cradle of the world. But 
one of the an-cient E-gyp-tians fell out of the 
cradle, and bumped his head, slight-ly in-jur- 
ing it. His fore-head swelled, and so he be-came 
the first highbrow (see the Isms — high-brow- 
ism). It was prob-a-bly this slight-ly de-ment- 
ed E-gyp-tian who in-vented the al-pha-bet, on 
which all written lit-er-a-ture is built. He 
chopped it out on rocks, and because in E-gypt 
all de-men-ted per-sons were thought to have 
in-spir-ation from the gods, the prac-tice grew. 
He is said to have been killed by a flying chip 
of rock while dot-ting an i. Poor f el-low ! 

The E-gyp-tians were all right for be-gin-ners, 
but corn-pared with us they were a very ig-nor- 
ant peo-ple. Very: for in-stance, they em¬ 
balmed the bod-ies of their dead and thought 
that these would be safe and sound for-e-ver and 

116 








BEDTIME STORY 
OF MANKIND 


e-ver, but Modern Sci-ence (see .Esthetes) has 
dug these up. Then a-gain the E-gyp-tians 
built Pyr-a-mids, which we can still see stand¬ 
ing about in E-gypt: but they do not de-serve 
any credit for this, be-cause this was long be¬ 
fore Tho-mas Cook was born, and Pyr-a-mids 
are no good for any-thing ex-cept the tour-ist 
trade. 

3. Greece. 

The Greeks were a ver-y no-ble peo-ple who 
had two great cit-ies, Ath-ens and Spar-ta. But 
the pop-u-lations of Ho-bo-ken in A-mer-i-ca and 
Ham-mer-smith in England, which are not cap- 
i-tal cit-ies to-day, are greater than those of 
an-cient Ath-ens and Spar-ta, so that Greece 
after all was only a pi-ker coun-try. Ath-ens 
was fa-mous for its sculp-ture, its phil-os-ophy, 
and its plays. Spar-ta was fa-mous for the 
war-like way in which the peo-ple lived : indeed, 
it was the most Spar-tan city that ever ex-isted. 
In Ath-ens lived Dem-os-the-nes, who is said 

117 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


to have gone a-bout with a lant-ern looking 
for an hon-est man. Fan-cy that, chil-dren ! 

In Ath-ens lived a man called Pla-to, who in 
vented Pla-ton-ic love. But this is some-thing 
your mother would not want you to know about, 
for it fig-ures in many un-pleas-ant di-vorce 
cases. There was also a-nother phil-os-o-pher 
called A-ris-to-tle, whose i-deas were differ-ent. 
A-ris-to-tle thought that what-e-ver is, is, and 
Pla-to thought that what-e-ver is, isn’t. This 
is real-ly all there is to it, but whole li-bra-ries 
have been written about the sub-ject. 

In A-thens also lived a man called Soc-rates. 
He was a very good man who lived and died 
for his be-liefs. But some-bod-y else discov¬ 
ered this first, so Mis-ter Wells says that he was 
a bad man. But Mis-ter Wells has writ-ten 
some good books, so I for-give him. 

But, dear me! I fear that I am taking up 
too much time with this sub-ject of Greece. 
There are two thou-sand years and a lot of 
coun-tries to get through with, and so I must 


118 







BEDTIME STORY 
OF MANKIND 


con-tinue with Rome. But first I ought to 
say that the Greek of to-day is some-what dif- 
fer-ent from the an-cient Greek. Aut-res temps , 
aut-res mce-urs , as they say in their po-etic lan¬ 
guage. A great A-mer-ican phil-os-o-pher 
called Tad says that when Greek meets Greek 
they start a rest-aur-ant. 

4. Rome . 

The Ro-mans also were a no-ble peo-ple, I 
am glad to say. The Ro-mans were a greater 
peo-ple than the Greeks. You see, the Greeks 
stole all their i-deas from the E-gyp-tians, but 
the Ro-mans stole all their i-deas from the 
Greeks, and also made the Greeks pay trib¬ 
ute to them. The Ro-mans were great em-pire 
build-ers, and their greatest man in this art was 
Jul-ius Caesar (see illustration — Caesar Cross¬ 
ing the Rubi-con). But al-though Caesar con¬ 
quered the world, he was con-quered by Cle- 
o-patra, a fa-mous cin-e-ma he-ro-ine. Cle-o- 
patra was a wick-ed wo-man, but some day, 

119 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



hist-o-ry will record that she was more cin-e- 
ma-ed than sinning (the cin-e-ma, dear chil¬ 
dren, is the quaint En-glish word for the movies). 

5. The Middle Ages . 

The Middle Ages are called the Middle Ages 
be-cause they al-ways come in the middle of a 
hist-o-ry book. The man who dis-cov-ered 
the mid-dle a-ges is Mis-ter Chest-er-ton. (See 
the Utions — ’Evolution.) 

The Mid-dle Ages were a merry time when 
beer was good and plen-ti-ful, and every man 
had his think-ing done for him, and learn-ed 
scholars discussed how many an-gels could dance 
on the point of a pin. These scholars, or school¬ 
men, as they are of-ten called, knew every-thing 
about the science of argu-ment that has e-ver 
been known. For ins-tance, if Ot-to said that 
twelve an-gels could do the pin-point ballet, 
and Ro-ger said the true number was thirteen, 
Ot-to pro-ceeded to say that Ro-ger was a eu¬ 
nuch and a mis-be-got-ten id-i-ot and an arch- 

120 







amnimniw, 



“ U-SU-ALLY ONE IF NOT BOTH OF THEM WAS BURNED AT A 
STAKE, AND THERE WAS A GREAT PUB LIC FEST-I-VAL 
AFTER-WARDS.” Page lai. 






















































































BEDTIME STORY 
OF MANKIND 



her-e-tic in the bar-gain, and Ro-ger said that 
Ot-to was a dis-ci-ple of the fiends and a fool of 
a cuck-old whose wife made sport of him, and 
each de-nounced the o-ther to an in-qui-si-tion. 
U-su-ally one if not both of them was burned at 
a stake, and there was a great pub-lic fest-i-val 
after-wards. 


6. The Renaissance . 

After the Middle Ages came the Re-nais- 
sance. This was the time when the learn-ing 
and art of the an-cient Greeks and Ro-mans was 
warmed over and served to the ea-ger intelli¬ 
gentsia of Eu-rope. That is why the enlight¬ 
ened in-tel-lect-uals of to-day, who are their 
des-cen-dants, are still suf-fer-ing from men-tal in- 
digest-ion, for warmed-up food is bad for the con- 
sti-tu-tion. (See the Onomies — gastron-om?/.) 


7. The Birth of Modernity. 

We have seen how the Mid-dle Ages was the 
age of the School-men. It fol-lows log-ic-al-ly 

121 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


that the pres-ent day is the age of the school- 
marm. Let us brief-ly sur-vey the hist-o-ry 
of the world for the last five hun-dred years, 
and see how this ben-ef-i-cent change came 
about. 

The Med-i-ae-val days were the age of chiv- 
al-ry. Just as the ram-pa-geous and snort-ing 
ich-thy-o-saur-us fought for his gent-le mate 
(see the utions — Evolution) so the knight of 
old fought for his faire la-dye. No knight had 
real-ly earned his spurs until he had a-chieved 
a rec-ord of at least two o-ther knights killed 
be-fore break-fast. Now, the ladies did not 
wish the gent-le-men to be-come ex-tinct, as 
the ich-thy-o-saur-i had become, and so they 
prayed the gent-le-men to de-sist, and form 
de-bat-ing so-ci-eties instead. But then gun¬ 
powder was in-vent-ed, and the la-dies were 
foiled. This new game, be-ing very nois-y, w^as 
e-ven more fun than the old ones, and ev-ery 
duke and earl who had not in-her-it-ed a war ac¬ 
quired one by mar-riage, or else just but-ted 

122 







BEDTIME STORY 
OF MANKIND 


in. The ladies grew an-noyed, for the men were 
too bus-y fighting for them to pay them any 
at-tent-ion at all. So they de-vel-oped a tem- 
per-a-ment, a thing which they had never pos¬ 
sessed before, and pro-ceed-ed to give the men¬ 
folk a taste of fight-ing at home. 

And so you see that the fi-nal ab-o-lition of 
the hor-rors of war does not rest with the 
League of Na-tions, or the New Re-pub-lic 
after all. It rests with your mo-thers. Good¬ 
night, chil-dren! 



ns 







TH 


E OUTLINE 
EVERYTHING 


OF 


XI 

OUTLINE OF THE GREAT WAR 

Specially Written by Commander Wuns- 
more Chappill, formerly Ship’s Printer 
of the English Training Ship Arethusa. 

(Copyright in U. S. A., Gt. Britain, Canada, 
Australia, Sarawak, Tierra del Fuega, Siam, 
Czecho-Slovakia [except the prov. of Sczcyvncz], 
Central Africa, and Brazil.) 

(Indo-Swedish serial rights reserved.) 

Editor’s note. 

No expense has been spared to secure for 
readers of ”The Outline of Everything” an ade¬ 
quate survey of the World War which has had 
such far-reaching effects on so many of the 
branches of knowledge treated elsewhere in this 
work. 


124 





OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 



The gallant old hulk Arethusa is well-known 
to everyone who ever paces the storm-bound 
shores of England between Blackfriars Bridge 
and Charing Cross Underground Station, in dear 
old London. But probably few have ever real¬ 
ized how important a part she and her dauntless 
crew played in the world cataclysm of 1914- 


1918. 


This, Commander Chappill is fully capable 
of explaining, since, as ship’s printer during 
these eventful years, he had unique opportuni¬ 
ties of seeing the progress of the war from the 
inside . If his narrative strikes some readers 
as perhaps somewhat personal in flavour, let 
them remember that in this he is only following 
in the distinguished footsteps of his predeces¬ 
sors in military and naval apologias. 

And anyway, the price which has been paid 
for the exclusive rights to these startling reve¬ 
lations is so incredibly high that it is bound to 
command respect for their accuracy. 


H. B. T. 


125 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


ME AND THE GREAT WAR 

Memoirs of The Rt. Hon. Wunsmore Chap- 
pill, Ship’s Printer of the Training Ship 
Aretkusa. 

A Dramatic Moment. 

The first eager sparrows of the dawn were 
twittering gaily in Whitehall, and the morning 
sun, dispelling the mist that hung like a great 
shadowy film over the Thames Embankment, 
shone in its full radiance upon that noble monu¬ 
ment, Cleopatra’s Needle, in the distance, when 
my alarm clock rang harshly, and simultaneously 
the historic ship’s bell of the Aretkusa clanged 
eight times. Somehow, in some inexplicable 
way that I cannot explain, a cold chill of appre¬ 
hension ran through my veins. I arose briskly 
and, clad in my frogged cerise pajamas, strode 
to my port-hole and gazed out upon the rapidly 

126 






OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 


vanishing haze. Then I set to sharply on my 
matutinal calisthenics. 

There was a rap, stern and imperious, omi¬ 
nously foreboding, at my cabin door. I told 
myself that it was only my morning cup of tea, 
but in the deep recesses of my heart I knew that 
that was not all. I was right. It was Lieutenant 
Albert Blenkinridge, my second-in-command. 

“Sir,” he said, in a breaking voice, “I have 
a wireless message from Whitehall.” 

* * * * * * 

The worst had come. As I sit now in the 
calm tranquillity of my study, endeavouring 
to reconstruct the awful tension of that moment, 
the strenuous labours of that crowded morning, 
even now I am assailed by a vague sorrow, not 
unmingled with a passing regret at the ingrati¬ 
tude of a great though democratic nation. . . . 
But no matter. Within half an hour I had is¬ 
sued the order for mobilisation of the Arethusa , 

127 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


and every man jack was at his appointed station. 
Within an hour the clarion call of a bugle is¬ 
suing from the lower deck announced that the 
ship’s printing-shop was a teeming hive of ac¬ 
tivity. Within an hour and a half I was fully 
dressed. Advancing with crisp strides to the 
seething centre of preparations, I was greeted 
with a deferential salute by my second-in-com¬ 
mand, his face ashen grey with manfully con¬ 
cealed emotion. “Sir,” he said simply, “the 
presses are running.” 

British Sang Froid. 

“Exactly,” I said. “Blenkinridge, I com¬ 
mend you. You have not failed. But above 
all things, Blenkinridge, you must keep 
calm.” 

“I will try, sir,” he said. “I can but do my 
best. What are my orders ?” 

“Telephone through to the First Lord of the 
Kitchen,” I commanded. 

Within forty-five minutes of the issuance of 

128 







/ 


OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 



the order, Blenkenridge returned to me with a 
neat proof-sheet. It read : 

Pea Soup, 

Roast Mutton & Mashed Potatoes, Sauerkraut, 

Rice Pudding 
Camembert. 


I took from my pocket the pencil that I have 
carried at all times, and resolutely drew a firm, 
heavy line across the word “sauerkraut.” In 
its place I wrote “ chutney.” 

“Mr. Blenkinridge,” I said, “I take upon my 
own shoulders the responsibility of altering 
these orders. From this day on, no German 
dishes shall reach the tables of the Arethusa, 
so far as I am concerned — and I am prepared to 
bear the consequences.” “But, sir,” he said 
hesitantly, “the sauerkraut has already been 
cooked, and is ready in large vats in the kitchen.” 

The Nelson Touch. 

“Mr. Blenkinridge,” I said, “what has been 
cooked concerns me not in the least. I do not 

129 









THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


invade the province of the culinary department, 
and I make no criticism. But the printing- 
presses of the Arethusa are indubitably under 
my command, and while they remain under 
my command, no sauerkraut shall be printed. 
Sauerkraut it may be in the kitchen, but chut¬ 
ney it shall be on the menu. Do you under¬ 
stand ?” 

“Very good, sir,” said Blenkinridge. Sa¬ 
luting smartly he clicked his heels, wheeled 
around and strode off to carry out my command. 

“I shall be criticized for this,” I told myself, 
grimly — “hardly criticized. I shall be reviled 
by the culinary command, calumniated in the 
popular press. There will be defences, explan¬ 
ations, red herrings, to make. No matter. I 
shall not make them. Above all things my 
work must go on, and if my good name must 
suffer for my principles, I, for one, shall not 
grudge the sacrifice.” 

Sauerkraut it was, indubitably, on the tables 
that night. But chutney it was on the menu. 

130 








OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 


I allowed myself a grim smile, for I had won my 
first victory. 

Of the stormy days and nights that followed, 
the anxieties that etched on my face those deep- 
graven lines of care which the world sees there 
to-day, the tumultuous excitements that flashed 
upon my overcast horizon with every flash and 
spark of the straining antennae of the Aretliusa’s 
wireless, the fierce flush of victory and the dull 
crushing lethargy of reverse, I shall have much 
to say before I lay down my pen. First, though, 
I shall deal manfully with my calumniators. 

A Yellow Peril . 

All the world knows how, on the fifth of 
October, 1915, England rang with the story of 
how a group of documents comprising the com¬ 
plete dinner-menus of the Arethusa for the whole 
of the preceding week fell into the hands of the 
enemy, with the result that Long Ti, a Chinese 
mess-boy who was discontented with the fare, 
was bribed into the German service by the offer 

131 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


of a thousand yards of wurst. There is no need 
for me here to recapitulate the deplorable and 
tragic story of how Long Ti, before his capture, 
court-martial and subsequent execution, con¬ 
cealed a store of carpet tacks in the plum pud¬ 
ding of the ship’s company, and deposited pow¬ 
dered lignite in a gallant Admiral’s red-pepper 
castor. 

Prevalence of Truth. 

Long Ti has been dealt with, and his name and 
the story of his fate will long be a thing of terror 
to the enemies of England. But true it is that 
information of military value fell into the hands 
of the enemy, and that it was for me, as com¬ 
mander of the ship’s presses, to assume the re¬ 
sponsibility. My shoulders are broad and they 
have borne many burdens. I do not murmur. 
But sooner or later, under the inexorable law 
of eternal justice, Truth must prevail, and I 
now for the first time unfold the secret story of 
the theft of the menus, pregnant as it is with 

132 








OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 


significant exposures, with revelations of a char¬ 
acter the sensationalism of which I cannot but 
deplore. 

The Absent Warrior . 

On the night of the fourteenth of October, 
1915, the Arethusa , under secret orders, steamed 
slowly up the Thames, and silently anchored 
in the hospitable shadow of Westminster Bridge. 
It was a dramatic voyage. How many London¬ 
ers, lying abed on that autumnal night, dreamed 
of the silent, unassuming security which that 
brave old vessel was giving them as she cut the 
down-flowing current past the high, shuttered 
windows of the Savoy and the classic dignity of 
Adelphi Terrace ? When our moorings were 
made fast, I came on deck. And, peering 
through the veiled darkness with my glasses as 
I stood on the bridge* beside the captain I felt 
a great sorrow and a great joy well up in my 
heart as I beheld the splendid shimmer of Cleo- 


* Not Westminster Bridge, but the bridge of the “Arethusa.” 

133 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


patra’s Needle in the distance and the dim 
glow of the lights of the County Council trolleys, 
emitting a subdued clang as they came to the 
crossing, then vanishing into the mysterious 
haze, like ships that pass in the night. . . . 

Sorrow, because duty kept me from the bosom 
of my family, at that moment wrapt in slum¬ 
ber in the peaceful shades of South Kensington, 
whilst I stood on the bridge of the Arethusa in 
the chill night, my glasses glued to my eyes, 
buffeted by gales and spume, and weighted 
down by multifarious anxieties. Joy, because 
it had been given me to serve, to withstand wind 
and rain and storm, and for my country to defy 
whatever menace of raider or lurking submarine 
might be waiting to deal out sudden death, 
there in the dark reaches of the swirling Thames. 

Treachery in High Places . 

Suddenly I drew myself up to my full height. 
I focussed my glasses on an adjacent section of 
the embankment wall. A small boy stood toy- 


134 





OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 



ing with a pea-shooter. “Go away!” I cried 
sternly. I had seen that boy before , as the fol¬ 
lowing paragraphs will unfold. 

In answer he laughed mockingly, and there 
was something in that laugh that aroused 
strange forebodings, for it was not the care-free 
and innocent laughter of youth. . . . There 

was something Hunnish in that laugh. Look¬ 
ing around, I saw that the navigating officer 
had gone below. I was left to face this situation 
— alone. Again I raised my glasses to my eyes, 
only to be distracted by a cunning ruse. Lifting 
his pea-shooter to his lips and taking aim, he 
shot a pea that with deadly accuracy struck 
the exposed surface of my Adam’s apple, and, 
gliding off my collar, rolled down my neck. 
“So this is what the admiralty has reduced 
me to!” I muttered bitterly, and, leaning over 
the rail, I brandished my fist in the night and 
vowed revenge. At that instant I was startled 
to hear a dull thud. It was the crack of a blunt 
weapon against my head. I knew no more. 

135 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


When I awoke I was back in South Kensing¬ 
ton, with my wife bending over me solicitously. 
“The documents!” I screamed out in my de¬ 
lirium. “The documents!” 

Then I came to for a moment, and saw the 
anguish written in large letters on her face. A 
tear formed in her eye, and with a dull splash 
dropped on my counterpane. “I know all,” 
I said. “They are — gone.” 

“They are — gone,” she said slowly. 

Once more I lapsed off into delirium, and when 
again I returned to consciousness, I said to her 
earnestly: “It is not my fault. The Admi¬ 
ralty . . . ” 

“I know,” she replied sympathetically. “The 
Admiralty. . . . But will the politicians 

and those nasty newspapers understand?” 

A Glimpse into Secret History. 

They didn’t. But perhaps they will under¬ 
stand, perhaps the facts of the matter will be 
brought home even to their crude intelligence, 

136 








OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 



when the following documents, now released 
for the first time from my secret and official 
files, have been given to the world. First this 
extract from my diary, dated September 17th, 
1915: 


“9.45 p.m. Saw small boy standing on 
Embankment near Westminster Bridge. Car¬ 
rying a small weapon , apparently a pea¬ 
shooter. Demanded in stentorian voice: 
* What are you doing there ? 9 

“‘None of your - business ,’ he replied. 

“Looks suspicious. Must write to Admi¬ 
ralty 99 

“Sept. 19th. Moored near Westminster 
Bridge again. Again saw small boy . Must 
write to Admiralty 99 

But, when I saw him again on the succeeding 
night, I delayed no longer. Nor did I pause for 
the slow process of the mails. I dashed off an 


137 








THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 



urgent message, and, calling Blenkinridge, I 
said: 

“Mr. Blenkinridge, you will send this wireless 
message to the Admiralty.” He saluted smartly, 
and disappeared. My message read : 

“14/25. Small boy standing on embank¬ 
ment observing movements The Arethusa 
Armed with pea-shooter Looks suspicious 

“ Chappill ” 

It was five days before I received a reply, in 
cypher. Decoded, it read : 

“Take measures” 

Now, how was I to take measures, and what 
measures was I to take ? I leave it to any fair- 
minded man. My authority held good only 
on the high seas, and the moment I set foot on 
the Embankment I was an ordinary Londoner, 
shorn of my power. I was on the horns of a 
great dilemma. At last I decided to look else¬ 
where for assistance, and, as my files will bear 
out, I sent the same despatch, adding only the 

138 







OUTLINE OF THE 
GREAT WAR 


one word Urgent” to the Chief of the Intelli¬ 
gence Department. He replied: 

“Sorry. Powerless act. Comes within 
;province London County Council . Urge refer 
Scotland Yard.” 

A Dignified Retort. 

This I firmly and flatly refused to do. It 
was beneath the dignity of a naval officer in a 
post of high authority; it was most irregular; 
and a long and intimate acquaintance with the 
methods of Scotland Yard, acquired in the 
study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, told 
me it was futile. Baring my breast to the 
storm, I wirelessed back : 

“His Majesty's Navy needs no assistance 
from Scotland Yard. Assume full responsi¬ 
bility.” 

On the day when I was discharged from the 
Infirmary, I took a taxi to the Admiralty and 

139 










THE OUTLINE OF 
EVERYTHING 


demanded an immediate transfer to a duty that 
would bring me at closer grips with the enemy. 
“I would oblige you,” said my chief, that bat¬ 
tered old sea-dog, “but there are no mine-sweep¬ 
ers in the Lake in Kensington Gardens.” 

There was a catch of emotion in his voice. 

The rest of the sad story I have told. But 
I have suffered for King and Country. 


THE END 


140 








INDEX 







INDEX 


(Find the pages yourself; you can’t expect us to do all the work.) 

Advertisement, value of. 

Agincourt, battle of, doubt concerning exact tactics of 
Athens, unfavourably compared with Hoboken 

- unfavourably compared with Hammersmith 

- use of lanterns in. 

Bridge, Blackfriars. 

- of H.M.S. Arethusa . 

- Westminster 

Cerise, colour recommended for pyjamas 
China, history of early dynasties in (note) 

- treachery of native of. 

Chumberleigh Pools, marigolds at (see also Poetry, sub¬ 
jects for). 

Cleopatra, posterity’s opinion of .... 

- needle of, seen from H.M.S. Arethusa 

Conscientiousness, striking example of 
Crane, Dr. Frank, his friendship with Nietzsche 

Crillon, see Xavier. 

Criticism, American, thoroughness of ... 

Disinterestedness, in publishers, etc., proof of 

Doyle, Sir A. Conan, opinion on spirit photograph of, not 

given . 

- - writings of, found useful in grave 

national emergency. 


143 













INDEX 


E. & O. E.,. 

Eiffel Tower, importance of. 

Engineering, see Eiffel Tower. 

Etching. 

Euphrates, as subject of Oriental art 
Exegesis, epistemological, consideration of 

Gastronomy. 

Greenwich, eclipses invisible at .... 

Hammersmith, see Hoboken. 

Hoboken, see Athens. 

Holmes, Sherlock, influence of Kant upon 
Honesty, recommended by Lord Riddlebrook . 
Hospitality, a laudable virtue .... 

Idealism, Platonic exposition of .... 

- survival of after the Great War 

Index, pages containing . . . . . 

Intelligence Department, powerlessness of 

Kent, supernatural occurrences in ... 

Kettles, proverbial philosophy of ... 

Lyre, Mr. Vachel Lindsay not provided with a . 

Marksmanship, instance of highly developed 
Minesweeping, dangers of, not dreaded by Mr. Chappill 

Nails, care of ....... 

New Jersey, U.S.A., fauna of. 

Odyssey, how to popularise the .... 

Optics, use of tortoiseshell in .... 
Orcagna, difference between Orpen and 
Orpen, Sir Wm., not to be confounded with Orcagna 
Outlines, Platonic reality of .... 

- inexpensive, how to prepare 

144 









INDEX 


Paleness, in colouration of ring-tailed wombat 
Pansy, wild, doubtful theories concerning the 
Paste, the best (Advt.) ...... 

Pense, honi soit qui mal y ..... 

Poetry, put in its place. 

- subjects for ...... 

Potatoes, hints on cultivation of ... 
Poultry, hints on the rearing of .... 

Quatrains, five-lined, not recommended to beginners 

Relativity, see Poultry. 

Riddlebrook, Lord, his ambitions .... 

- his determination .... 

- his fondness for literary society . 

- his grit ...... 

- his high qualities of character 

- his high qualities of soul 

- his hopes ...... 

- his political career .... 

- his praise of honesty .... 

- imitator of ..... 

Sczcyvncz, special publishing arrangements in 
Shears, use of, by amateur outlinists . 

- use of, by ring-tailed wombat 

Sheep, hints on grazing ...... 

Sweezy, Dr. Anastasius, birth of ... 

Telescope, how to make best use of ... 

- used on active service on H.M.S. Arethusa 

Terminology, discovery of. 

Theosophy, discarding of. 

Tobias, inquisitive disposition of .... 
Tombs, new use for royal. 


\ 


145 






















INDEX 


Utqpia, population of. 

Walpole, Mr. Hugh, as Homeric scholar 
Wealds, inspirational value of . 

Wei-Hai-Wei, progress of Assyriology at . 
Wombat, ring-tailed, adaptability of 

- attractive temperament of . 

- biological significance of 

- difficulties of, in cold weather 

- prudent domestic economy of 

Wurst, see China, treachery of native of . 

Xavier, Christian name of gastronomical expert 

Yen. 

Zodiac, influence of syncopation on the 


146 


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